Courage: My Word of the Year

Each year, I choose an annual theme, an idea I originally got from Steve and Vicki Palmquist of Children’s Literature Network. My word for 2012 was Focus. I think I got better at focus last year. I learned to do better at blocking out my to-do list and focusing in on JUST whatever I was working on at the moment. So that was good. Yoga helped a lot. I don’t think I did very well on applying Focus to my freelance life in general. I still feel spread too thin, so I need to keep working on this.

But, I’m still choosing a new word for 2013, and it’s Courage! I’m going to try to find the courage to:

Stand up for my writing more often to editors. Editors are often right, and I’m very open to revising, so that’s no problem. Last year, though, I worked on a set of rhyming picture books for an educational publisher. In my opinion, the editing made the meter of the books inconsistent and hard (for me, anyway) to read aloud. We went back and forth and back and forth, but we got nowhere. Eventually, I found the courage to say that I wanted to use a pseudonym. It was awkward. It was uncomfortable. But I recently got my author copies, and I’m so glad I did it. The books are adorable and teach content. But the meter, to me, is off. It is not a reflection of how I write rhyming manuscripts. So I know I did the right thing. I respect this publisher and hope to keep working with them. But if this did put an end to that working relationship, I’m still glad I found the courage to do what I did.

Get more involved with educators. I often feel intimidated by educators since I’m not in the classroom and don’t know all the current studies and practices. But I’m excited to be a Co-Chair on an NCTE Committee this year and can’t wait to go to the annual conference again. It took courage to say yes to the invitation, but I’m glad I did it. I need to jump into conversations more often and be willing to offer my perspective as a writer (not as a teacher) on subjects I’m passionate about.

Write things that might not be salable. I write plenty of things that turn out not to be salable (dang it!), which is an entirely different thing from purposely writing something you love, knowing it will likely never find a home. But I need to find the courage to write those things anyway, knowing they’ll make me a better writer even if they never find a home.

I’m sure there are plenty of other ways I can be more courageous, and I’ll be thinking about what those are. But these are a few to start with.

What’s your goal/theme for 2013?

Focusing in on My Word of the Year

Each year, I choose an annual theme, an idea I originally got from Steve and Vicki Palmquist of Children’s Literature Network.

But it’s been so hectic lately I haven’t yet chosen mine for 2012. Which should be a good clue. I need to FOCUS! There are lots of ways I need to apply this theme to my writing life:

Photo: Keven Law

• I need to focus my actual writing. In picture book after picture book, my issue is that there’s not enough focus. The conflict I set up doesn’t quite match the resolution. So even though the character succeeds, something feels off. Must work on that!
• I need to sharply focus my time. My income was down more than 50% last year (I’ll be sharing my annual money post in the next month or two after I do taxes), so I have to focus on income-producing writing. So in order to have any time at all for writing that may or may not generate income, I have to cut all the fat out of my schedule. I just took a leave from one of my critique groups, and I might have to make that permanent. I’m looking at all my habits, from blogging to social networking to marketing, to figure out which ones stay and which ones go.
• And then, whatever I’m working on at the moment, I need to focus and give it 100%. I’ve been practicing yoga for a year now, and I really think that has helped me learn to clear my mind. I’ve got to work on that skill even more for 2012. My first step to that will be keeping email and Facebook closed except for my quick check-ins between tasks. So I might still open them hourly, but I won’t click through to them every few minutes to check things.

I know Becky Levine posted her annual theme and maybe lots of other people have, too. Do you have a particular word, theme, or feeling you’re working on in 2012?

Thanks for Nothing, Jon Scieszka!

The new National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature will be announced tomorrow, and today, bloggers are taking time to thank Jon Scieszka, the outgoing ambassador. (Outgoing in both meanings of the word.) Here are just three of his books I absolutely love:

I could go on and on, but one of my goals for 2010 is to blog short (ha!), so I just want to say:

Thanks for nothing!

Jon Scieszka actually inspired my 2009 theme of Do Nothing. And I figured Jon was funny and irreverent and successful, and if 15 minutes a day of doing nothing worked for him, I wanted it to work for me.

Unfortunately, I was an epic failure at Doing Nothing. However, I still want it to work–for all the reasons I mentioned when I first took up the theme and for one more reason, too. I hate that I didn’t reach my goal. How could I fail to reach a goal that involved simply doing nothing for 15 minutes a day?!

But, because I so admire Jon Scieszka (and, ok, maybe a few other reasons besides), I hereby declare:

2010 is the year of doing nothing for 15 whopping minutes every day!

That’s right. It’s a do-over. My theme for 2010 is, once again, Doing Nothing.

Meanwhile, to see how other bloggers are honoring Jon and his tenure as Ambassador, check out A Year of Reading.

Do Nothing in 2009

OK, I finally have a theme. I’ve had 2009 goal lists done for a while now, but no theme. Drum roll, please. Ba-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-dum…My 2009 theme is

DO NOTHING

I am not a do-nothing kind of person. I’m always multi-tasking, and while this makes me efficient, I think I’m missing out on some important parts of life. I remember hearing Jon Scieszka, a funny, crazy, wild man if ever there was one, give a talk in 2003. And he extolled the virtues of spending 15 minutes a day doing nothing. Sitting in a chair or outside or whatever, and just letting your mind wander.

To be honest, the idea of this scares me. Even when I take a long bath, I read. While I watch TV, I pay bills or do other paperwork. While I drive, I practice upcoming talks/speeches, etc. (looking like a total lunatic) or just lose myself in music. But I never do nothing. What if I have no thoughts at all? Is that the point? Or will my thoughts be disturbing? That would not surprise me at all.

But I’ve publicly stated it now. My theme in 2009 is to find little chunks of time regularly to just do nothing. Wish me luck. I’ll let you know how the nothingness goes.

My Theme for 2008: Make Me Lose Control

Last year, on Wordy Girls, I posted that my 2007 theme would be Ask Questions Later. I wanted to be more fearless, decide to say yes before I analyzed every single cotton-picking pro and con. And I think I made good progress on that. I said yes to presentations I was unsure about and to writing assignments, especially, that I wasn’t sure how they would go. And overall, I was so pleased with my yeses.

But now it’s time to pick a new theme! After a little thought last nast night, I decided that Lose Control was going to be my theme for 2008.

All my life, I’ve been the responsible one. I moved out of the house at 16 and worked more than full-time to put myself through college. I never got drunk. I never touched drugs. In grown-up life, I made the charts, I did the budget, I planned everything. 

I got sick of that. 

I’m especially tired of what responsibility has done to my writing. I’m a professional, and that’s a good thing. I turn in manuscripts on time. I follow editors’ directions. I research accurately and write thoroughly. All of this works fabulously well for my work-for-hire work and my speaking and teaching engagements, but not so much for my personal projects.

Over the past few years, my husband and I have shared more of the duties of running a house with kids, and it’s been so nice to get some of that weight off my shoulders. I don’t want to be responsible for everything. In fact, sometimes I just want to be irresponsible.

The same is true of my writing. Being 100% responsible, in control, is not always the best thing.

Kelly R. Fineman had a fantastic E.B. White quotation in her quote-skimming post this week: “A poet dares to be just so clear and no clearer; he approaches lucid ground warily, like a mariner who is determined not to scrape bottom on anything solid. A poet’s pleasure is to withhold a little of his meaning, to intensify it by mystification. He unzips the veil from beauty, but does not remove it.”

I love that. I need a little more mystery, intensity, loss of control in my writing. Probably mostly in my poetry, but in other forms, too. I want to be more open to not knowing what’s going to happen when I let my fingers strike the keys. I want to just ride air waves, wind currents, and dip into the ocean (but not scrape bottom) like a seagull does.

Unlike the goals I set (which are always measurable and attainable, of course), this theme isn’t something I research and plan out–thankfully! Instead, it’s just something I will try to keep in my head during 2008 and get better at. It is possible to be conscious of trying to become a more subconscious writer? Anyway, we’ll see what happens.

What about you? Any theme you’d like to set for 2008?