2011…A Year I Didn’t Schedule

2011.

I’m old enough now to be an age I didn’t think too much about when I was young. Oh, yes, I pictured things in my future (what worrier doesn’t?). I thought about being a grown-up writer; I thought about falling in love and getting married; I thought about being a mother; I thought about having my own house. But–on my virtual-imaginative calendar–all those things happened at some magically young date somewhere in my twenties (Well, okay, the writing part was going to be BIG before I got that old!) and maybe my thirties.

I’m not sure what I thought I’d be doing in my forties.

More writing, at the very least. 🙂

I think, when I was young, visualization was about goals, very specific ones that would be defining achievements. Moments. And I’ve had those goals and those moments and, happily, am still having them. But now, I think, life looks more like a continuum (thank goodness), and visualization seems to me more about the how than the what.

Some people around the blogs have been picking words for their 2011 year. I kind of like that concept, but have never really tried it out for myself. This year, the first time I let my brain skitter in that direction, a word popped up into my mind.

Peace.

Yes, obviously, this kind:

But also my own peacefulness. I look at everything I’m doing, at everything that’s happening with my family, and I don’t want to give any of it up. Let’s face it, I kind of want to add a few more things. Jordan Rosenfeld says it beautifully with her New Year’s post, A Year of Spaciousness.

What I don’t want is this:

So…peace. 🙂

In 2011, I resolve to move forward on my writing path. I will make progress on my YA historical and my picture book. I’ll listen to new story ideas and drop them into folders. I’ll take steps to knock on (and hopefully open) doors so that I can write more nonfiction for kids and teens. I’ll keep critiquing with my critique partners and editing for clients. I’ll keep reading. I will do all this while enjoying the rest of the world–my husband and son, my home, my friends. And I will breathe and take breaks and stop–if not to smell any actual roses–definitely to look around me and see what is being wrought.

The thing about not having planned a year is that you can let it unroll, walk along it, and see what it brings.

Happy 2011 to you all.