New Year's Resolved

 I don't have a lot of complicated resolutions this year, just a desire to prioritize my health and my family, an urge to make a wish, hope for it and then believe it might really come true. And of course to write more books (and sell more too!)

Last year my goals were those shown above and I'd have to say I did pretty well with them the first half of the year, then some family issues slowed me down and bogged me in a lot of worry and the whole balance and health kind of flew out the window.  But Time to get back on track.

Happy 2014

Setting Goals for 2013

Here are my New Year's Resolutions for 2013

This year I chose things I know I will get better at, because they are important to me, and because I am already making progress on them, I have written 3 1/2 books, and I have lost 40 pounds and given up soda and started adding in lots of random acts of fitness thanks to Jonathan Roche and The No Excuses Workouts.

I do live in a beautiful place where getting outside is a Joy

I do Treasure my Family but the miles between us makes it a bit more effort to keep those connections alive now. 

Balance, Well, sometimes, but not so much in my bank balance, so that is the focus this year.

 Do I love New Year's and the Resolutions to do things differently and better?  Well, yes and no.  Rather than going out to a party, I love going inside with my journal and reading notes and essays and lists from previous years. But I see that a lot of the things stay the same from year to year without change.  That is good and bad.  It means I hold the same values but also that I have the same problems. A couple of times I have followed the suggestion I saw years ago in a "Better Homes and Gardens" magazine that suggests not writing what you want to do, but making a list of 100 things you tolerate, small things that sap your time and energy if you don't deal with them.  That has worked well for me, I can always go back and check off several that I did deal with and feel empowered even as I move some to the new list.  I have gotten rid of a lot of the specific piles of clutter I've written about and done some of the maintenance tasks on house and car and marriage, because, yep, even after 30 years together, there needs to be time and effort in maintaining that closeness, especially as out role changes from family with children, to couple with grown adults who sometimes visit.

 Last year I chose only one thing to focus on, one small three letter word that I wanted to have be at the heart of the first and last thoughts in my mind every day. JOY!  That was a wonderful change in attitude for me because I often tended to walk around with a cloud of worries and anger.  Now i habitually find the good before The bad thoughts even start. If I panic over the money, I start to breath and tell myself, "for today, you have everything you need, yesterday you did too, trust that you will Tomorrow as well."

 So I have found Joy and beauty all around me, even in the worn and abandoned house down the street.  It is lovely in a strange, mysterious way I think.

 This year I am looking with Wonder on the giant stumps on the former Redwood logging camp land where I live, and thinking of how things change over time, but how those changes can let in the sun and bring wonder and growth too.

I see my blind dog trusting that he is safe if one of us is near and realize that we are a lot like that dog, we don't see all the things that are in out world, but if we can trust that we will be Ok, we usually will be.

So a year of Joy, Wonder, Balance and Storytelling for me. Blessings to you,


Love,

 Dixie

NaNoWriMo and NeWo

 My rubber duckies say I love you in sign language and I love November for the crazy, insane attempt to write 50,000 words along with the 300,000 people world wide who have given themselves permission to think that the world needs their story, and to write a quick and dirty first draft in 30 days.
http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/dashboard

I know there is insanity here, and November is by far one of the busiest months of my year, but there is vale in the fact that I can feel free to put down all the thought in my head and see where they go.

When I am writing this quickly, I enter a state that is very near sleep.  My brain slows down and drifts randomly as my fingers try to capture the images before they vanish, like those great ideas you only get just as you are starting to drift off to sleep.

 My oldest son is out on a crab boat working and has been gone for weeks while his blind dog lives with me. Ford is charming and barely past a year old, and likes to run everywhere, so crashes headfirst into chairs that are not pushed back under the table or the knees of people standing quietly.  He loves the she;; of my cat, and tries to find it, but the closer he gets, the more the smell fills the places where the cat has recently been and confuses him. Rocky has learned to sit motionless and soon Ford is down, bounding around to check other spots near-by.  "Where's the Cat?"  If he does get close enough that they bump, they both startle and then the cat aims a quick blow to the dog's nose.

My stories work like that. I know what I am chasing, and I think I know where it is, but then a strongly enticing smell lures me to another path, and sometimes it is clear and I follow it, and sometimes it leaves me with my head aching and my nose stinging from where I ran into a wall.

 I look for inspiration all around when I am trying to hit 50,000 words, and this old picture of my Mom and her cousins has served as the launching pad for many memories which have become slightly altered and find their way into the novel more as sensory details of the places and times than as the actual events of the story.

 Fall is here and glorious outdoors calls to me even as the calendar reminds me that the word count must be reached or else

 but reaching the word count of 50,000 gets harder on the old bones the closer I get to 50 myself.  Sitting at the computer too long in a story induced trance, I feel great.  Then I wake up, push back the chair and find that I have been crippled.  My hips and wrist and spine resist straightening. My hands are freezing cold and my feet don't really want to bear my weight as I hobble to the coffee pot.

That is when I feel the most gratitude for Jonathan Roche and his NeWo Program.
 No Excuses Workouts

http://www.noexcusesworkouts.com

 had helped me drop 40 pounds and gives e the necessary tools to know what I need to do every day to maintain my strength and increase my health.  I have learned his 15 secrets by heart, including get enough water and sleep and fit in movement every day even if it is only walking to the mailbox or stretching for six minutes.  He has made me celebrate the random acts of fitness like jogging in place while washing dishes or brushing my teeth, and parking far from the store so I get a brisk walk several times a day without ever thinking of it as a workout.  Hobbling is good for my novel, since Duffy Barkley is stiff and crippled by Cerebral Palsy, but Newo is good for me.