Keeping New Year's Resolutions

Every New Year's day I try to make a few promises to myself with respect to what I'm going to accomplish in the new year. Sometimes I'm able to keep these promises and sometimes I'm not, but like most people my intentions are good.

This year I've sworn to get some of my incomplete manuscripts finished and ready for editing. Where I send these new works for publication is still up in the air. I might try sending them to one of my existing publishers or I might self-publish them. But I have to get them finished first.

Another thing I need to do is organize my office. It is cluttered and I'm not using the storage as well as I should. Once the room is straightened out I might even be able to include in the room a futon bed so we have an extra bedroom for visitors. This will be a big job, but one I should be able to tackle over the course of the year.

The last thing on my list of resolutions is to take better care of myself. I get to the gym a couple times a week, try to keep my weight under control, and make sure to get the medical check-ups I need. But more than that I need to take care of the inner me, my mental health. I should get more sleep and watch what I eat or drink in the evening so that I sleep soundly. I also need to stay focused on the joy of living and not let the minor and not-so-minor aggravations of life get me down.

There are probably more things I could add to this list but these items are a good start. What sorts of resolutions do you have for this upcoming year? Use the comments to let us know.

Cheers,

Janet Miller / Cricket Starr

www.janetmillerromance.com

Will the Phone Ring?

This year is my fourth time to enter the prestigious Golden Heart contest. Each year the emotions have built, but no phone call has come with the best kind of news. I'd love to hear someone tell me that I have earned a final in the Romance Writers of America contest for unpublished writers. Will it happen on Friday?

It's a hard one to call. (pardon the pun) I'd like to say yes and relax, but I can't do that. I know that I've polished my story. I like the way it reads and hope that others will enjoy it as well. The question I always ask myself is, is it good enough or do I need to run through it one more time. Do we ever get to the point where we can say, "Yes, it is ready for the public to read?"

I have such a grand, supportive group of friends who have encouraged me to enter the contest because they have confidence in me. Their support means the world to me and I hope that this time I can say "YES" the call came.

I have my fingers crossed for all of us who've stepped up to the plate and put our work out there to be judged. It's both scary and fun at the same time.

Writing Life

This month I’m discussing “Writing Life”. What a great topic, especially since that’s my daily routine.

I recently read an article on this very subject where the author suggests all sorts of things to eliminate boredom. Boredom??? Who the heck is bored??

Now perhaps I read that incorrectly, but quite honestly, if you’re bored, then it’s time to take a break from the novel you’re writing and move onto another.

Starting a new story is so much fun, isn’t it? Where do my story ideas come from? Conversations, eavesdropping, funny things that happen to me, or my friends, or when I’m writing suspense, I’m using the newspaper for ideas. This is when the ‘what if’ game comes into the picture to formulate the ideas through various perspectives until I settle on an idea that excites me.

Once that’s done, I begin my process by developing my characters and doing profiles. I conduct interview sessions with lots of questions, after which, I match the profiles up against the personality types as based on the Meyers-Briggs Personality test, and then, I find the closest match of sun signs found in “Linda Goodman’s Sun Signs”.

Now comes the fun part of collecting pictures of my characters from magazines, or an Internet search for models of all ages. Soap Opera characters’ photos work really well too. I’m always mindful about selecting images of characters I know nothing about simply because I don’t want to change protagonist’s personality type after I’ve gone through all the trouble to mold them into what I want them to be. Sort of like playing God, don’t you think?

Next comes a brief outline, chapter by chapter, with as much information as I can come up with. Sometimes it’s a little brief until I actually begin doing the research, but this is the time to develop the story no matter how long it takes. This is called doing your homework.

It’s almost like being in school again, don’t you think?