New Year Declarations 2022

Instead of resolutions, I’m making new year declarations for 2022:

Finish My Novel (for real I mean it)

Really finish the never-finished novel. In case you are playing along at home, the last time I posted here was a year ago, with an update that I had sent my novel to a developmental editor. I did this twice, and I am now taking the editors’ priceless notes and incorporating the ones that work for me into the structure and detail of the manuscript. It is a very heavy lift, and on any given day I am somewhere on this journey and today I got all the way to the bottom but managed to get to the upswing, just under the bridge.

My novel, titled You Will Be Just Fine, is about a dead woman who manages to make contact with the living world in order to deliver a message to her best friend that could save a life. I started it during NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) in 2014 by writing 50,000 words in 30 days. One million years later, it is 90,000 words but still shifting because I have a lot of plot work, world-building, and character development to do. The story, however, will stay the same.

My struggle* is that for my first ever novel I am tackling a very complicated topic, and I also have pretty high standards when it comes to storytelling and writing style. I want this book to be something I would enjoy as a reader. Some parts measure up, but as a whole, it’s not yet there. I’ll continue to craft the writing and the story in my spare time. No big deal. This will be the hottest debut novel of 2023. Declaration!

Run a 5K

I already signed up for a local 5K. I have successfully run three others in the past and it got me in great shape so I’m doing it again. This time, with more age!

Make My Bed Every Day

All of the above are realistic goals. New year declarations feel more like putting my intentions out into the universe than a promise to do the things. There’s probably not a difference, but I have decided that doesn’t matter.

Wish me luck.

*Confession: I came here to write a long whiny post about my struggles with this novel, because I needed  to write through my thoughts to sort them out. I did that, and it helped, but it was not publishable, so I edited it and made this list of declarations instead. This confession is for any writers who read this, because I know you will know what I am talking about.