Starting the New Year on the Right Foot (or maybe the left…)

THAT was a good, long winter’s nap.

If you don’t remember (it’s been a while since I posted, explanation coming up), by mid-December, I was a wee bit of a mess. The book tour was fun, but long, and I got sick as soon as I unpacked my suitcase. This was my body’s way of forcing me to rest. And then my cousin died and …., well, it was awful. I spent the last two weeks of December not working. I cleaned and decorated and cooked and baked and baked and baked and slept and slept and slept and pondered mortality and the snow falling in the Forest.

Image and video hosting by TinyPic I even made a Bûche de Noël (a cake made to look like a Yule Log).

Between Christmas and New Year’s we had waves of relatives and friends visit.

Image and video hosting by TinyPic This is the BH side of the clan.

Image and video hosting by TinyPic When the Halses came to dinner, we put out Christmas crackers that had crowns inside of them. Dad and Mom sported their crowns regally.

Image and video hosting by TinyPic My crown made me look like a dorkoramus, so my sister decided to keep hers on the table, not on her head.

New Year’s Eve was look and full of merry-making. New Year’s Day was sorting and cleaning and preparing new adventures.

I have to come clean on my 2008 Resolutions. They were defeated by the book tour. Specifically, the third week of the book tour. In truth, I rarely averaged running the 20 miles a week I had hoped for. I think it’s going to take a few more years of consistent training until my body can handle that without injury. I was able to write every day up until the first day of book tour that had a 3:30 am wake-up call. Also, I did not win the lottery.

I have learned my lessons.
1. Resolutions need to be reality-based.
2. Book tour is an alternate reality during which resolutions do not apply.

2008 Resolution Tracker Totals
Total Miles Run: 621
Number of Writing Days: 334

So, without further ado, drum roll … LHA’s 2009 Resolutions

I resolve to run 750 miles in 2009. (This is a more realistic goal than last year, but secretly, I really, really, really want to hit the 1,000 mile mark)

I resolve to write every day in 2009. (With the aforementioned altered-reality-during-book-tour clause, above).

I resolve to reduce my use of the word “should.”

On New Year’s Day, BH and I suited up and ran three miles in the snow to start on Resolution #1.

Image and video hosting by TinyPic 747 miles to go!

What are your resolutions?

my season for quiet

At my cousin Darcy’s funeral on Sunday, I read from Ecclesiastes 3. Here’s the King James version of the passage:

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

Wise words.

This is my time to keep silent; to mourn, to give thanks, to reflect on the bewildering experiences of the last couple of months, and to prepare for the year ahead. I’m taking a vacation from blog writing until January 1st. I will be responding to email and snail mail. But slowly.

I need a season of quiet and healing.

Don’t worry, I’ll soon be speaking out again (at the top of my lungs occasionally), I promise. There will be some very cool website updates to talk about. I have to write FORGE and get to work on a new non-fiction picture book and begin the quest for a new YA idea. Baking season is upon us. Homemade jam must be consumed. By January I’ll have the details of my March book tour and I’ll have to get ready for a trip to Lima, Peru. Before we know it, it will be time for ALA again!

I’m off to hibernate in the Forest, friends. See you in 2009!

Image and video hosting by TinyPic

somber

Many of you contributed to the fund raising my husband and I did this year for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. We ran a half-marathon with that group and raised the money in honor of my cousin, Darcy Skinner. He was fighting non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Darcy died yesterday.

If you have any extra prayers, please offer them up for the comfort of my Aunt Norma, Darcy’s beloved companion, Theresa, and his teenage daughter, Lauren.

Thank you.

Worth repeating

I have finally gotten sick (no complaints – I was healthy the entire booktour) and am not capable of original thought.

Thank goodness for Authors Guild President and seriously smart and funny guy, Roy Blount Jr.

Roy just sent this email:
“I’ve been talking to booksellers lately who report that times are hard. And local booksellers aren’t known for vast reserves of capital, so a serious dip in sales can be devastating. Booksellers don’t lose enough money, however, to receive congressional attention. A government bailout isn’t in the cards.

We don’t want bookstores to die. Authors need them, and so do neighborhoods. So let’s mount a book-buying splurge. Get your friends together, go to your local bookstore and have a book-buying party. Buy the rest of your Christmas presents, but that’s just for starters. Clear out the mysteries, wrap up the histories, beam up the science fiction! Round up the westerns, go crazy for self-help, say yes to the university press books! Get a load of those coffee-table books, fatten up on slim volumes of verse, and take a chance on romance!

There will be birthdays in the next twelve months; books keep well; they’re easy to wrap: buy those books now. Buy replacements for any books looking raggedy on your shelves. Stockpile children’s books as gifts for friends who look like they may eventually give birth. Hold off on the flat-screen TV and the GPS (they’ll be cheaper after Christmas) and buy many, many books. Then tell the grateful booksellers, who by this time will be hanging onto your legs begging you to stay and live with their cat in the stockroom: “Got to move on, folks. Got some books to write now. You see…we’re the Authors Guild.”

Enjoy the holidays.

Roy Blount Jr.
President
Authors Guild”

(The boldfacing was not in his original letter – I added it for those of you who are so busy you didn’t have time to read the whole thing.)

All I can add to this is …. ditto what he said.