PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS…
Time is an odd concept, isn’t it? We say things like “time heals all wounds” and “in time it will get better,” but I think what we mean is that “time” will simply distance us from thngs we wished hadn’t happened.
2012 was a year of significant change in our household. I spent a good part of the last half of 2011 praying and hoping for a way to keep the house we’d built and lived in since 1995. Faced with the fact that it wasn’t going to happen, I spent most of 2012 praying for it to sell. Do you ever wonder if God answers prayer? I believe He does…in His own time. In the case of our house sale it took almost a year. A year of lowering the price, finding the right buyer, negotiating, potential deals falling through, but it happened!
Now I wonder about the space/time continuum, how you can pick up your life and relocate it so easily. After nearly thirty years on one place, you can land somewhere else and it’s almost like all that previous time didn’t exist. You are where you are. This is your reality, your present moment. The past is the past and for me at least, once it’s gone, it’s gone.
There’s also this sense that as we age time moves faster. I’ve told numerous people why this is so, something I read years ago in Marilyn vos Savant’s column in PARADE magazine. When you’re five years old, one year is 20% of your life. When you’re fifty years old, one year is 2% of your life. The days and weeks fly by. Taking books out of the library for the initial two weeks is nothing to me. I can’t believe they’re overdue before I’ve read them and I can’t believe I forgot to renew them in time.
My life is measured out in day job work shifts, days off when I write. Big events, especially the ones when I get to see my kids or spend time with my friends. Little things bring me joy.
2013’s going to be great!
WRITING NEWS…
As I compose this a few days before Christmas, I have editing to do on THE FIRST TIME AGAIN. eBook publication date is May 2013. If you haven’t heard enough about this book, it is the third in The Braddock Brotherhood series of contemporary romance novels published by Samhain Publishing. I love my determined-to-change-his-ways ex-pro quarterback hero, Trey, who made his first appearance in A FOREVER KIND OF GUY.
My short story, Katy’s Place, has been accepted into the 2013 Novelists, Inc., anthology. I don’t usually write short stories, but as a writer, you should be able to write anything, right? I decided to challenge myself and pitch this idea and I got the green light. I am not certain when the anthology will be available, but I’ll include that information in a future newsletter.
I submitted another poem entitled “My Husband the Car” to the Lakeland Ledger. This newspaper seems to (eventually) publish whatever it receives so I’ll let you know when it appears.
2013 PLANS…
Meanwhile, I have three or four other projects I jump back and forth with:
NOBODY’S FOOL, FANTASY MAN, RICH WOMAN (#4 in The Braddock Brotherhood series) and COOL BEANS (#2 in the Grinding Reality series written under my pen name, AJ Tillock). Apparently, this keeps me from getting bored! I have always done this and accept it as part of my writing process. I get stuck and start something new. Or I get stuck and go back to of one my early unfinished manuscripts to see what I can do with it after I’ve had some distance from it.
Why am I such a slow writer? The idea is always there. I start writing without a plan, a plot, a goal, motivation or conflict. Case in point, two years ago I wrote 160 pages of THE FIRST TIME AGAIN, mostly the love scenes and thought, yes, but what is this book about? What do these characters want? Who are they? You see how long it took me to figure it out. Lest you think that was the end of it, it was not. My editor suggested two rounds of editing before offering a contract. I may be slow, but I never give up.
I don’t make New Year’s resolutions but I did make a list of things I want to accomplish in the coming year. I wish you all a happy and successful 2013.
Come visit me at www.barbarameyers.com
Follow my infrequent posts on Twitter at @barbmeyers or ajtillock or both!
