Chinese New Year this year falls on Valentine’s Day, February 14th, 2010.  What a wonderful alignment of events!

This is The Year of the Tiger – with the focus on courage, power and optimism. I like these descriptors as it seems they are the qualities that one requires for maintaining focus in the writing business.

‘Courage’ reminds me that I can keep going – one day at a time, one paragraph at a time, one page at a time.

‘Power’ reminds me, that I am in control of my writing. I choose the topic, I choose the characters and I choose the plot. (Sometimes with great ideas provided by other writers or by craft books.) But it is important to remember that although I don’t have any control of the ‘publishing business’ I certainly can be in charge of my own writing. I am therefore, powerful.

And of course, optimism. There will always be a writer around the corner who writes faster and has more success. Writing is a humbling enterprise. I have to be thankful for the prolific, excellent authors  because they keep readers coming back to search out more books. Hopefully, one day, my book will be one of them.

What do you think of courage, power, optimism and writing?

I love New Year’s Day and the month of  September. I guess it’s because I like to start afresh with new writing supplies. I love my 2010 day planner and it’s a treat to find other office stuff to help me focus on my writing. I  love paper, stickies, high-lighters, journals, notebooks, and recipe cards.  

I feel the same excitement in September.  In fact, for a long time, September was the start of my year. Even though I’m no longer working in schools, I still enjoy that September exhileration of launching into something new.

I love New Year’s because I remember that anything is possible. Anything. And goals are the way to go. Somehow the whole concept of a goal seems more attainable than a resolution. I guess I’ve broken enough resolutions to not want to ‘go there’.

I am working on my goals today and certainly most involve writing. However, my key word for this year is ‘balance’. When my life is balanced then I’m able to observe, able to make better sense of my world and able to write.

So for my friends out there – if you need to remind me – BALANCE is my mantra for the year.

What are you thinking about as we approach the new year?

This past week I met an elderly woman in a small library close to where I’m living. Initially we didn’t speak and then we started making conversation. She looked like the kind of woman, a grandmother, probably a great-grandmother who might be searching for knitting magazines or a Reader’s Digest. A huge cloth book bag dangled from her arm.

“Dear, you look like a reader,” she said.

I nodded.

“Have your read this book? She rummaged around for a few moments in her bag and hauled out ‘The Lovely Bones’ by Alice Sebold. “What do you think?”

I gulped. Was she really reading such a hard-hitting novel?  ”Ah yes, I’ve read it. It’s a tough slog, grim. Have you finished it?”

She shook her head. “I only read it in the afternoons. It’s too scary to read when it gets dark outside.”

“Yes.”  And I felt strange. Embarassed at my assumption that because she was decades older than me, and looked a certain way, that she would only be interested in a certain kind of writing.

If I’m lucky and have good health and live to her age, hopefully I’ll be reading challenging novels as well. I walked home slowly, thinking about how I’d categorized her.

P. S. for those who haven’t read ‘The Lovely Bones’,  Susie is a young girl who tells the story of her murder-and its aftermath-as she watches from heaven.

Have you made any assumptions lately?

Biosphere 2 is an engineering marvel created to better understand how natural environments create habitable conditions for human sustainability. It is located twenty minutes north of Tucson, Arizona.

Picture the largest greenhouse you can imagine.  It consists of 6,500 windows and 7,200.000 cubic feet of sealed glass. It is sealed from the earth below by a 500 ton welded stainless steel liner. I was in awe.

Two missions were created in the nineties. Small teams were locked inside the large structure to study the five natural biosystems and agricultural areas. This confined environment led to a number of complex situations.

In other words – the human drama rose to the surface. Members of the teams split into groups. Anger and distrust bubbled up. I suspect the situation was like an early version of the TV show ‘Survivor’. After all the millions of dollars poured into the experiment, the main issue ended up being ‘the people’.

People and their visions, people and their feelings, people and their ability to create or destroy relationships.

That’s why I’m drawn to writing fiction. I can take aspects of lives around me, books that I’ve read, movies I’ve seen and my day-to-day thoughts and stir them all together in one big stew.  It’s all part of the complex web of creating new characters.

Why do you like to write fiction?

Last weekend my Saturday unfolded in a very pleasing and harmonious way. A friend and I attended an Intuitive Arts Festival in Victoria, B.C.

The entire day was research for a new YA book. The various topics, booths and workshops ranged from Energy Healing, Chakra Clearing, Meditation, Reike, Laughter Yoga, Feldenkrais, Aromatherapy, Tarot and Magic and Ritual.

If the moment is right, and if the practioner has the time, I’m interested in asking  ‘Why did they become interested in their particular speciality?’ Their answers are revealing. Usually, an incident took place and they felt driven to search for information in a particular area.

Afterwards we had a great lunch and then finished the day by perusing the shelves of Munroe’s, a very fine book store.

As I drove home, I was filled with happiness. What a perfect day!