Tomorrow we're heading off in our RV to California for the rest of December to visit with our son in San Francisco. This may give me time to reflect and perhaps refocus my scattered energies.
Already one of my promises to myself and others was not to continue as president of Mesilla Valley Writers for a fourth year. Unfortunately, the person who volunteered to take over had a tantrum and decided to renege. You'd think someone about 70 years old would act like an adult, but no. No one else will take the job except one lady who has no experience running anything and never speaks up in meetings. So we agreed she'll get tasks to help her prepare to become president eventually, like chairing some of the meetings. The job remains mine in the meantime. So that's one resolution already broken, and the new year hasn't even started.
The other writing group I'm active in is 40 miles down the road, in El Paso, Texas. They are a larger and more vibrant group, but El Paso is also five times larger than my home town of Las Cruces. The El Paso Writers' League held its annual awards luncheon and installment of officers yesterday. They awarded prizes in their writing contest, which is highly anticipated all year. I won a few prizes for fiction and poetry, though my non-fiction did less well.
One commitment for 2011 is to co-edit and produce Border Tapestry, an annual book for the League showcasing the contest's first-place winners. It will be the third year on this great project, and it's a lot of work. One of the stories in the book will be the first and so far only chapter in a novel I began about 5 or 6 years ago. The judges' comments were encouraging enough that I'd like to start working on it again.
As for Mesilla Valley Writers, our January program will focus on members' writing goals for 2011 and how to achieve them. My own focus will be to pay more attention to my own writing and less on these peripheral writing-related activities.
How about you? Do you use this time of year to plan realistic writing goals? What do you hope to do differently, or better?
Sunday, December 12, 2010
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2 comments:
Here's hoping someone volunteers! Everyone wants to participate but no one wants to lead...
I'm also hoping to spend more time writing and less time on the other junk. I really can't justify doing more promotion, attending conferences, etc. if I'm not writing and submitting. Time to put muse back to work.
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