New Year's Resolutions

For the last five years, my New Year's Resolution has been "Write a Book." Now, I have written one. I have written four, in fact, but most of what I have is glorified outlines and stream-of-consciousness drivel. My Resolution for 2011 is this: "Polish a Book." This year, I would like to take one that I have already "written," and work with it--rewrites, edits, more rewrites, critiques--with the intention of sending it to agents by next December.

There are other goals for this year:

• Attend graduate school
• Grow my business
• Read 10,000 pages of books I want to read

Ambitious, but that's who I am: Miss Ambition.

Merry Christmas, to All--

I bought myself a laptop this Christmas. I have been wanting one for years, but now I can justify the purchase by knowing that I can use it for my theater job. I have a baby laptop that is three years old. No disc drive, no programs, a reduced keyboard, and a bum internet connection. I love the little guy, but it's time for him to retire.

I absolutely adore this new computer. It's a Toshiba, and though I'm a Mac gal by nature, so far Dexter (yes, I name my computers) has held a battery charge and sat on my lap for extended periods of time without burning me.

I have these crazy dreams of sitting around working on my novel.

Has anyone used yWriter? I downloaded it, and I'm excited to load my Work-In-Progress into it.

Merry Christmas!

Returning to my July novel...

I found a catalyst.  I am writing a fictionalized memoir.  I won't call it a memoir, of course, because much of it will be made up, but I will take real events in my life and make them more extreme.  "What if I never broke up with my high school boyfriend?  In fact, what if I never left my hometown?"  Me, in that situation, would be very unhappy.  I imagine most of my real friends would have given up on me and skipped town.  What if I left to pursue my dreams and reconnect with my friends?  What if my naive self were to trust too much and go broke too soon?  What if I got stuck halfway across the country?  When did I become a cynic?  What caused that?  But can't love triumph over all in the end after all?

We shall see, my friends.  New working title: The Cheesecake Fund.

It ain't over 'til it's over.

I am not giving up yet.  Sure, I have two days and nearly 40,000 words to write.  It could be worse.  I have had a funeral and a convention and a small business and work and sleep and lots of food to deal with this month, and I have felt very overwhelmed.  But I'm not giving up yet!

Tonight, I write 'til midnight!

Current word count: Somewhere around 11,000 words.