It's Not Really a New Year's Resolution, But...

I guess the next round qualifies, doesn't it? I work this last weekend of WinterFest before the UpShift list grows bleak for a while, at least for someone with my timeframe. I'd already planned to devote January to UnSung's 2019 release, as well as that dentist appointment falling smack dab on the first of the year. This will also be the same month I devote myself to sloughing off the winter weight, looking into a doctor who can help me uncover the mystery of why exercise usually means more muscle gain than weight loss for me.

So while it's not a proper resolution, it certainly falls under a timeframe liberated from the crunch of gift making and temp work, a time when I can get geared up for ComicCon and future goals.

I feel the near-sighted trepidation of a busy weekend and the healing of these ornery teeth. Yet in the middle of that, I'm looking forward to going to WinterFest with my family as guests and our sit-in New Year celebration involving wine (the delightfully non-alcoholic sparkling sort for the kiddies) and a slew of board games. So it's not all crunch time, just activities that will require energy I'll really have to reach for.

Yet I see it there, just past that-- the closing of another book, which will be my eleventh. I see the gratifying hard work as I brush up the cover and format it for print and ebook. I see the excitement of returning to UnHeard, my NaNoNovel, to make it into an epic third entry to the world I never named. Only the continents, some of the cities and the smaller elements grow in increasing revelation, an homage to how blurry the world can get on the broad and distant edges. Even my most well-traveled characters are subject to how the world moves behind their backs.

I love how writing is so full of these little treasures of the writer. It's not just full of what we know, but what we reach for, what we want to know, yet still never quite get. Like sand art, we endeavor to create these rainbow layers, but no matter how much we try to pack it tight so the gap doesn't disrupt the sands, disturbances and time always break it down further when it's bumped around.

Rather than try so carefully not to disturb the balance, there is a moment when we must accept that stories are subject to forces that even care cannot preserve. Instead of trying to make the sands cooperate, we must appreciate the beauty of not only what it was but what it becomes.

I truly anticipate going back to that uncertainty. I've never been held back by doubt when it comes to creativity, at least not in this stage of my life. In truth, all through my life, what I've done even leisurely is somehow always magnified by people in wonder of what I sometimes took for granted. From the comics I threw onto lined notebooks in grade school to the fluorescent fairies I hid around the flower shop I worked in, there was always unexpected joy in having what I created for myself spied over my shoulder, the unchecked sounds of admiration for ways I filled my time and calmed my mind.

So why wouldn't I want to find the guts to share it? Truly, the response was worth it, but I was undoubtedly fragile. It took many years to forge myself into a creature that understood how criticism should be taken, to improve myself or ignore it altogether.

Let's be real here (as if I'm ever not) and observe that the 'suck it up, buttercup' sentiment is bullshit. It worked for older generations, for a time when opportunities were abundant, but even in cutthroat competitive areas nowadays, it does you little good. Sticking it out nowadays means it's not healthy to suck up all that poisonous tripe. Those generations didn't have the ruthlessness of keyboard warriors and doxxing that could make or break who you are. We don't need to suck that garbage up. We need to turn it into something useful and send it out. We need to strategize, to build armies, to be the arbiters of our own fate because letting others define us is dangerous.

And, really, I don't know anyone who says that who isn't sitting comfortably in a niche that is working for them. 

Closing on a light note, I love squirrels. Not just watching the silly bastards, but how much their constant bustling seems completely carefree even with such purpose to it. How, once they make it to the top of a tree, they don't just puff up in pride. They look for the next great adventure with no hint of complacency. It's no wonder so many writers consider them a fitting mascot.