You mean there's more?

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I saw a theory earlier this week (on Facebook, of course -- where else do old farts spend all of their time?) that this coming week is still part of that liminal, time-out-of-time period at the end of every year. This person maintained that if you count twelve days forward from the winter solstice, you arrive at January 6th -- and that period is the true 12 Days of Christmas about which we've heard so much, in which up is down and the Lord of Misrule takes charge and so on. 

The math doesn't work; actually, twelve days from December 21st is today, January 1st. But the solstice is a floating holiday -- next year, the moment of the winter solstice occurs early on December 23rd UTC, which will be sometime on the 22nd for the continental US. Still, that only gets us to January 3rd. 

But I'm embracing the theory anyway. It gives me an excuse to keep to my family-of-origin tradition of leaving the Yule tree up 'til the 6th. We're still in sacred time, people!

Anyway. I know a lot of folks are exhausted by this point in the festive season and are ready to box everything up and shove it back in the closet. And that's fine. You do you. 

For me, today, it's about taking a breath and looking toward the year to come.

Earlier today, while texting with a friend, we talked about how life after retirement seems like a gift. I mentioned that for the first several months after getting out here to Santa Fe, I felt a vague sense of panic that time was continuing on. I had spent so many years straining to get to the point where I could retire and leave DC, and then I did it. I left the job, I made the big move, I reached the goal. Go me!

And then a week went by, and another, and the calendar pages kept flipping, and time just kept going. It's not that I wanted the world to grind to a halt for me or anything -- I'm not that impressed with myself -- but I'd reached the Big Finality, and it wasn't final at all. If I could have voiced my feelings at that point, I would have said, "Wait. You mean there's more?"

So here we are, having just reached our big collective goal: surviving the holidays and ushering the old year out. And the calendar page has turned. Here we are, at the start of a new year. 

You'll get no pep talk from me about making 2023 your year! I have no goals for myself for this coming year, and I'm not about to hector anybody else into planning how to get ahead at work or lose those last ten pounds or whatever. (Sometimes I see headlines for well-meaning articles on these topics and forget for a second that I don't care anymore. Particularly the career advice. What a joy it is to skip right over that stuff.)

That's right -- I have no goals for this year. I mean, there are things I'm looking forward to, as well as skills I'm interested in improving, and I don't intend to ever stop learning. But tonight, I'm looking at the calendar and saying to myself, not with fear or panic, but with joy and wonder: "You mean there's more?"

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These moments of bloggy joy and wonder have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Happy New Year!

Come on, 2014.

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Is it just me, or does it feel like I take stock a lot?

Between the blogoversary and New Year's and various Pagan holidays, it seems like I'm always setting goals, looking forward, looking back, evaluating, reevaluating....

I guess it's a useful exercise to keep looking at where I'm going and where I've been. It does get frustrating, though, when I see goals carried over from list to list, from year to year, with little or no progress on them. I'm sure I'm not the only person who does it. "Lose weight" and its corollaries ("get fit," "start exercising," "eat healthier food," etc.) are a perennial for me, as I'm sure they are for others. Financial resolutions/goals/what-have-you are ever-popular, too.

Jim Devitt posted a goal development checklist at Indies Unlimited about a week ago (between his own manic cookie baking and manic gift-wrapping, I guess) that puts a slightly different spin on the project. I finally had time to catch my breath the other day and write down my answers. Number 4 on his list -- three things you need to stop doing in 2014 -- seemed to be an eye-opener for many of those who commented on his post. It's not that it's difficult to list the things you need to quit doing; that's the easy part. The hard part is to actually quit doing them. One of my three things in this category is to quit reading books on marketing without actually following the advice. It's so easy to let those pearls of wisdom just slide past my eyes and then keep doing the same dumb things I've been doing all along. If I'm going to take the time to read the books, I ought to be taking notes, at least. We'll see how that goes. Tune in here again this time next year.

When it comes to writing and publication, my goals for 2014 look very similar to my 2013 goals. I want to finish Undertow and get it ready for publication around the spring equinox, and then I want to write Scorched Earth and get that out the door before the summer solstice. And then I need to figure out what to do in the back half of the year. I'm planning one more series in the Pipe Woman Chronicles universe -- another trilogy, probably, with a grown-up Sage as the main character -- although I don't know whether I'll be ready to start it this year. I may write another stand-alone novel instead. I've been thinking of trying my hand at magic realism. Or I may try Susanna Lakin's strategy and write a book in a hot-selling genre. I don't know about you, but pulling down $3,000 a month from one book sounds like decent money to me.

I would definitely like to tweak my yearly writing-and-publication schedule so that I'm not trying to sell a new release in the same month that I'm writing the first draft of another book. Last month was just too stressful for me. If it means I have to skip NaNoWriMo from here on out, so be it. I can do Camp NaNo in April instead. Or make my own NoWriMo in whatever month I choose, which is what I've been doing for one book a year anyway.

Overall, I'm still on the seven-year retirement plan, and publishing three novels a year seems to be a reasonable pace for me. If I keep that up, and assuming the story ideas keep flowing as they have so far, I could have another 18 novels out there by the time I turn 62. That would bring me to 26 published novels -- a decent body of work. And just think of all the time I'll have on my hands after I retire to write more!

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Speaking of marketing, I'm taking Crosswind on tour from January 8th through the 17th. Here's the tour schedule if you'd like to follow along; I'll also post it on the "Tour Dates" tab. Plans are afoot for a giveaway featuring signed Crosswind paperbacks and a Navajo-made dream pillow. More to come, as they say....

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These moments of New Year blogginess were brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell.