New Year's Resolutions: They're Not Supposed to be Easy

So before I write about finding hooks for our books -- which may in fact not be for several posts as I decided I wanted to write in some orderly way -- I thought this post would be better suited to New Year's Resolutions since it is January and all. I don't know about you, but I tend to make New Year's resolutions routinely and I rarely start with them on New Year's Day. In fact, I'm more used to NOT doing them on New Years. A bit like being repelled by the cutest guy in the room in high school cause you know he knows it and you're going to do everything but show him any of YOUR attention. So this New Years I enjoyed a junk food extravaganza as we were traveling back from Disneyland with the kids. January 2nd I ate cheesy nachos while watching a movie in bed. Just recently (in fact today) I grabbed a handful of milk chocolate chips from the freezer. Yes, pure decadence. Now I've indulged and now I'm ready. Obviously one of my weaknesses is that I love food . . . I must be hungry.
But New Year's resolutions aren't supposed to be easy. New Year's resolutions are resolves we work at, to better ourselves in some way. We would've already done them if they were naturally easy. So how does this all relate to writing? Writing is also a skill we must practice, just like exercising or learning a new instrument or adopting a healthier lifestyle. Even if you are the next Stephenie Meyer or J.K. Rowling, you need to keep practicing your talent. It's one skill that has an unlimited potential to continually improve upon. How exciting and vast is that? So to keep that passion fire of writing alive, keep on writing. Make it part of your resolution for the New Year, not as an arduous sounding task but more an unexplored adventure. But just like training for a marathon, or learning how to cook, we all need guidance. We can write our hearts out but we need some measuring stick, a lead somehow. I'm not an expert, but I heard a saying somewhere that a professional writer is an amateur that keeps on trying. So let's start this New Year by writing daily. We'll have wonderful writing days and we'll have the most painfully, frustrating days also, but the key is we keep going. We never give up. We can look to the future with hope while living in the moment, allowing our unlimited potential and creativity to flow.

In one of my previous entries; I talked about some crucial elements to writing a story. We need CONFLICT. So in our story we need a WANT and then an OBSTACLE that stops us or propels us forward. Many avenues are possible, as vast as our imagination. A happy novel is unfortunately a boring novel. We all want to be happy, that's our goal. That should be our character's goal also in some sense -- to obtain peace somehow whatever the obstacle is -- in other words they haven't arrived at that happiness yet, much like everyone, which then opens the door for us to have our readers identify with our characters. And that's my tip for this post. Our readers must identify. And how do we identify? Through emotion, through seeing. Not by plain statements. For example, what is easier to emotionally or visually identify with? Elaine was tired or Elaine rubbed her eyes, looked at the clock -- 6:00am -- and slammed the alarm off. She rolled over, wrapped the covers around her head, ignoring it was a Monday morning. The second version allows us to picture the scene, relate to those Monday mornings after the weekend. So practice writing through emotion, visualizing the scene and showing versus telling.

And of course Happy New Year!