Starting Fresh by Mary Dutta

New Year, new you. 

It’s what behavioral scientist Katy Milkman of the University of Pennsylvania calls the Fresh Start Effect, the way that certain days inspire us to start a new routine. It could be your birthday, or the start of a new school year, or just a Monday. But the effect may be strongest at New Year’s, with its emphasis on resets and resolutions.

I’ve been known to make a few resolutions of my own, and even to stick with some of them. But the good news is that if things don’t work out after January 1, there are other New Year’s days that offer a chance to start anew.

Orthodox Christian faiths, for instance, still adhere to the Julian calendar, which means that they will celebrate New Year’s on January 14, 2026. If you need another month to gear up for your fresh start, Chinese New Year begins February 17. The Persians have you covered with a March 20 date if you’re looking for a spring reboot, and the Bengalis offer an even later option on April 15. If you make it to the fall still looking to begin again, the Jewish new year starts September 11 this year.

Just as there is no one way to count the passage of years, there is no one way to choose or achieve the goals a new year (of your choosing) may prompt. January invariably brings a flood of articles that aim to provide guidance and encouragement for aspirations big and small, but any day, week, or month can herald a fresh start.

Whatever new chapter you start in 2026 (or the year of the horse or 1385 or 1433 or 5787), you have 365 days to get it written. Let your journey begin.

Are you planning on a fresh start for a new year?

Reflections, Not Resolutions by Nancy L. Eady

As we are now in the final quarter of the year, I thought I’d reflect on what I learned this past year. I will not, however, make any resolutions besides one—the resolution not to make any resolutions. It appears to be the only resolution I can keep with regularity. Before that, I made resolutions only to end up breaking them. I always ended up with a long list designed to address my many flaws at once, which meant that the entire list of resolutions was broken before January ended. The record was the decision to swear off Diet Coke, which I made at 9:00 a.m. one day and broke by 9:05 a.m. the same day. 

Reflecting on the lessons I learned this year does not break the resolution not to make a resolution, so here we go.

In 2024, I learned: 

My inner critic is a real pain in the posterior who must remain firmly locked in a closet—until it’s time to edit, at which time she is allowed free rein. 

Riding in an ambulance is not nearly as fun as you think it would be. And NG tubes are the worst. But access to doctors and nurses who help you recover from surgery to remove carcinoid tumors is essential, although the conversation with the surgeon who explained how she felt all of my intestines while she was in me removing parts of it was surreal. The oncologist who told me in September I graduated from three-month to six-month follow ups is a favorite physician of mine. 

The international canine signal to play the barking game is to pick up your cell phone, and the opening of my laptop is the international canine signal to start the “in/out” game. 

The single most inspirational tool I have discovered to date, bar none, is the deadline. Not the preferred deadline, or the suggested deadline, but the file/submit-or-you-will-be-dismissed-from-court/publication deadline.

You never really notice how many places are available to hide bodies until you start writing mystery novels. 

It is amazing how many ways to commit murder you can find on Google. 

It is amazing how many murders are solved on the Discovery ID Channel. 

It is amazing how many people in the real world forget to erase their browsing history before committing murder pursuant to one of the methods adduced on Google. If my protagonist solved a murder that way, my readers would feel cheated. 

Scrivener fans really believe in it; those of us who can’t figure it out are better off sticking with Word. 

Ideas are plentiful, but the persistence to carry the idea through to a finished book is rare. 

I have words I overuse in my rough drafts. My first editing step is to make sure that my characters rarely shrug, sigh, fidget or exclaim. My second step is to weed out every “that” possible. I am grateful to the software engineer who invented the “search” function for word processors. 

When editing, less is more, until deletions make the manuscript unintelligible. Then more means more. 

Good beta readers are found in the oddest places. Of the three people who read my novel last year, the two I thought would be the best beta readers didn’t work out nearly as well as the third person to whom I sent the book simply to give her something to do while she recovered from major surgery. (This assessment does not include my husband, who is a great beta reader.) 

“Never, ever, ever give up” is an excellent motto for a writer. 

What lessons have come your way this year? 

Half-Year Resolutions by Debra H. Goldstein

Half-Year Resolutions by Debra H. Goldstein

Half of 2021 is gone.

I consider “Half of 2021 is gone” to be a profound statement. It has so many connotations: time has slipped by, life is closer to ebbing, a good six months is in the books, the world has started to normalize, and …   I could go on from a philosophical standpoint, but what does it mean as a writer?

 

For some, it translates to having finished and submitted books, short stories, or other manuscripts. If the writer is lucky, the work has been accepted; if not, the countdown of prayers has begun. If a book has been published, it probably means the author is caught in a whirlwind of virtual and possibly real-life promotion, with limited time to write. Others have spent the six months aspiring to start or complete a project.

 

I fall into all categories and yet, like imposter syndrome, I don’t feel I’ve done enough. I had a new book, Four Cuts Too Many, released by Kensington on May 25. Two weeks earlier, I turned in the manuscript for Five Belles Too Many, which will be published in June 2022. For weeks before and after Four Cuts Too Many came out, I focused on promoting it. At the same time, I added the tasks of enhancing my brand, building my newsletter audience, promoting three short story anthologies that I have stories in while balancing my family and organizational responsibilities (including planning a shower, rehearsal dinner, and the logistics involved with my son’s upcoming out-of-town wedding).

 

What I haven’t been doing is writing. I’ve got a new project in mind, but after six months, all I can show for it is eight hundred unedited words. Part of the problem has been putting writing at the bottom of my to-do list because I haven’t fully fleshed out the story in my head. When I worked, I carved out time every night and on weekends to write. Now, my attitude is one more reflective of “when the spirit captures me.” Looking back, that wasn’t too often in the first half of 2021.

 

Normally, I’m not one to make New Year’s resolutions, but this time, I’m going to make some half-year resolutions that I’m going to let you help me evaluate my success with at the end of 2021. Here they are:

1)     I am going to plant my bottom in a chair and write something every day.

2)     I am going to ignore, as much as possible, the distractions in my personal life (whether emotional or simply playing games on my phone) until I crank out some words [okay, I’m realistic enough to want to succeed, so I’m not giving myself a word goal].

3)     I’m going to remember that I enjoy writing and being with other authors, so I’m going to take advantage of the opportunity to do both now that the world is becoming saner.

Will you join me in making some half year resolutions? What will they be?

Resolution? Driving The Beast

Resolutions, shmesolutions!

Every year I make resolutions to lose weight, get in shape, and write that Great American Novel, lots of well meaning but vague blah blah blah that I never quite manage. Life - and if I am honest, Say Yes To The Dress, cherry pie, and my own monumental lack of willpower - gets in the way.

So I have decided two things. First, I don't need resolutions. I need a guiding light, a one size fits all, all-occasion, Swiss Army knife of encouragement to Climb Every Mountain Instead of Eating Every Dorito and Catching Something on TLC. I need a mantra to focus my powers of concentration. I need a motto. A short one. Something with a bit of drama...and I found it in a book review in the Washington Post.

For 2014, I will adopt as my motto the words of one mostly forgotten nineteenth century author, Mary MacLane, who exhorted: "To the winds with regrets!"

With motto in mind, what is the first metaphorical mountain of 2014 to climb?

I will tame The Beast.

The Beast

The Beast is what we have named my husband's brand new pickup truck. The white Chevy Silverado hulks over our family minivan and dwarfs my own little sedan, The Green Bean. Heck, The Green Bean could fit in the rustoleum lined caldera/bed of The Beast. The Beast replaces the Prius (aka The Flapper) which went west with Older Child. The irony of a two and a half ton truck replacing my eco friendly gas sipper is not lost on me.

Despite its size, The Beast is a modest, hard working truck - no diamond plate tailgate, no blingy trim, no steer horns on the hood. My ever sensible husband bought it to tow a boat trailer for the high school crew team he coaches. So The Beast a practical animal - a big, herking oversized animal that's tricky for me to wrangle down our clogged suburban streets.

I've decided I'm going to make The Beast my own.

Piece of cake, you say. It's got power steering. Power brakes. Get yourself five or six pillows to see over the dashboard. But consider that my 6'4" husband did not feel the need to buy a step in. For me to even get my much shorter self into the cab involves either a vaulting movement akin to Olga Korbut's in the 1972 Olympics or a sideways rock climbing move I believe is called the belly traverse.
I'm not going to let this truck beat me.

The open road is calling! I'm powering up The Beast, putting some Florida Georgia Line on the radio, and flooring it.

To the winds with regrets!

Do you have a motto or resolution for 2014?