Dreaming Big in ’09

I’ve heard that how you start the new year is a good indicator. I hope that’s true. Yesterday I watched some Miss Marple with my poor coughing husband, took a nap with the cat, read Let It Snow by John Green et al, ate leftover veggie chili and chocolate Kahlua cake, and wrote for about five hours.

And…I finished my third draft! I cut 56 pages, 18000 words, and 2 characters from the last draft. It’s so much better. I don’t know if it’s the change in person/tense or what, but I loved working on this revision, especially once I hit the halfway point. I know that it is so much better. Not perfect, of course. I’ll still be terrified when I send it off to my critique group on Sunday. But. It is better.

I want 2009 to be a year where I dream big and do everything in my power to accomplish those dreams.

I want to be a published author more than almost anything. In 2009, I want to try for an agent. I know that the journey to publication is fraught and full of rejection. I know sometimes it takes years and multiple manuscripts. But I won’t give up. I will have patience with myself and the process. My word of the year is PATIENCE.

It’s a little scary to say this so baldly–not because I think it’s a big impossible dream, but ’cause I used to think that I wanted to be a dramaturg more than anything. And then I changed my mind. Despite being a girl who loves her research, I hadn’t really done mine. Two years ago I had a master’s degree but found myself unable to get a decently-paying job in theatre. I still had to make connections. I had to build my resume. I had to give up hours upon unpaid hours of my time to read scripts and work on shows. I had to surround myself with intimidatingly vivacious theatre people and I’d never be home and…it wasn’t worth it. I didn’t love it enough. It made me feel small and invisible and overwhelmed.

But this is different. I do love it enough. It challenges me, and I have my insecure moments, but overall? I am so much happier. More expansive. At home in my own skin. I wonder if those of you who know me can see the change. And the research I need to do? It’s so much fun this time around; it doesn’t feel like a "should" at all. I read YA writer and agent blogs. I read books I fall in love with, and I read books that don’t strike the same chord, and I try to figure out what is different. I sit in my chair and I write. And there is no place I would rather be, nothing I would rather be doing.

I feel like that makes all the difference in the world.