In order to receive the gifts meant for you, you must first believe it is possible that they may come. Letting go of routine and your tight grip on your present circumstances. Just take one step. Just begin the journey. Your journey 2 weeks ago

While I would have loved to have finished my novel, other books were more important. I published ‘The Recovery formula’ in September 2012 and ‘The Happy Addict’ will be published in 2013. They are both books about addiction recovery and helping others to recover.

I am thrilled to have completed them both and have had wonderful feedback.

Next the novel, lol! (Another 5 years later…) 4 months ago

I finished the final draft of the book I was editing, and read it all through today. I have completely finished writing a book, right through to editing for a publisher, so I am considering this goal as done :) 4 months ago

I like what Mynde Mayfield had to say…

I will add visualizing to my list of sneaky ways to get myself to finish this book… 4 months ago

• sit down to write the same time every day
• turn off my phone, etc lol…
• decide on a goal for the day
• commit to sending X-amount of pages to my daughter
• join RWA again 4 months ago

Is in progress. However, having won NaNoWriMo, I have also won five printed copies of the book I wrote. Does this count as: A-having finished a book and B-sending it to a publisher? The story is finished, and it will be sent to a publisher to be published, first draft or not. The answer is for me to ponder.
HOWEVER – I am getting this goal confused with my new years resolution, which is to finish a piece of writing and send it to a publisher. Hmmm. I still have to decide what constitutes completing each goal. 5 months ago

Even though I am an atheist/agnostic, my family is Jewish and so I take part in all the Jewish holidays. I do this mostly to make my mother happy, but there’s something nice about customs and traditions as a way to bond with my family too. Anyway, Yom Kippur is the most important Jewish holiday. That’s right, it’s not Hannukah. Hannukah’s actually not a big holiday at all…it’s kind of like the flag day of Judaism, but its importance has been seemingly inflated in the United States by the fact that it happens to fall around Christmas.

Back to Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur is a holiday about asking forgiveness of those who you have wronged. People fast (no eating or drinking) for about 25 hours. I really don’t like Yom Kippur. Only Jewish people would think that suffering constitutes a holiday… Actually, Muslims fast for Ramadan, and Buddhists fast at many different times of the year… Fine, there are a lot of groups of people who like to suffer. Everyone secretly likes suffering. That explains the popularity of Fifty Shades of Gray. Humans are weird.

Anyway, though I had a rough start, this Yom Kippur was strangely pleasant for me. Instead of getting a horrible headache, as I usually do, I just felt strangely energetic. I felt that wonderful feeling that nothing can go wrong and that everything is beautiful. I felt hungry and thirsty, but more than anything I felt alive. The kind of alive that one feels when one thinks one is going to die but go on to live another day. I could feel myself shake as I stood on bambi legs and I could really feel each breath fill my lungs as I took the time to appreciate the cold and clamy feeling of my hands.

I just felt compelled to create and do and be. It’s the kind of manic feeling that makes life feel beautiful. yes, feel beautiful… like the aesthetic quality of beauty has become a gentle embrace from the universe.

I worked on my book today with that feeling. I worked out some of the plot holes that had been bugging me and I created another plot hole to solve. The way I write, I play out various scenarios in my mind. My characters experiment around in the world I’ve created for them until they do something that I like. Then I write that down. So, in a way, I escape to the world that I write. I hadn’t been writing for a while because I’ve been so worried about finding a job and finding a way to be able to go to graduate school, travel, and help people. Writing has taken a back seat. I forgot how much I love to write. I’m still growing as a writer, but I love my story and my characters. It’s the kind of story that I would want to read and the kind of characters that I would want to read about. The only way to become a better writer is to write.

Every Yom Kippur I feel so greatful for food and water and my family. Food tastes much better when you go without it for a day. Water slides down your throat in a way that makes your whole body sing. I think about all the people who feel that hunger and that thirst everyday but ten times worse. Yom Kippur enhances my desire to help people to not feel that way anymore. Yom Kippur makes me realize what is important. Any surely I will forget sometimes, because that’s what people do. But every year I have the reminder of Yom Kippur to keep me on track. And for that reason, as much as I dread Yom Kippur every year, I secretly love Yom Kippur.

... But I’m still happy that it’s over. 7 months ago

I’ve finished the 5th draft of the book I mentioned in the last post. I will let it sit for a bit, then review it. Maybe next week. I have a shortlist of publishers bookmarked too. I have decided to polish up this book, and as it is done once I have sent it off this goal will be done. I have a folder of ideas, and I could procrastinate forever about how many of them will constitute completing this goal. I need to simplify@! 8 months ago

Was initially to encourage me to write my bio. But I am still unsure about which book will actually count as achieving this goal after being overwhelmed by finding my notes for the other two books. Since finding them I have transcribed the printout of the one I actually started, completed the story, and it is in 4th draft right now. The notes for the other book which I haven’t started, I intend to use for NaNoWriMo this year. Part of me wants to simplify and just cross this off once I have something/anything ready to be sent to a publisher. I can cross it off my new year resolution too. Or maybe I could make it that finishing all three of these projects will count? That would encourage me to finish everything! Hmmm… 9 months ago

I’ve always loved to write. Always. I never gotten any support. I recently started writing something that I hope turns into a novel. I hope it gets published, even if it only sells one copy. It’s hard to find time to write as much as I want to. Between two kids and school it’s slow going. I’m determined to finish though. 9 months ago

i used christmas. and I told myself the book was a gift to my clients. but i secretly knew the gift would be to myself.

i also got really really clear, each time i sat down to write, what the end looked like and how reaching the end (finishing) would feel. i would spend about 5-15 minutes “dreaming” up how this felt and how much people would benefit from it. eventually, after enough visualizing, your fingers will be unstoppable and your book will finish itself.

it’s always about the vision first. feeling into it completely. seeing your dream already completed. before you ever write a single word. 10 months ago