2018 Resolutions and Goals

2018 Resolutions:

I do like to make New Year’s resolutions, if only to check throughout the year to gauge how many I follow through on.

1. This year my focus is on cutting out all hard alcohol. I’ll still indulge in a glass of wine or two while out to dinner or at a party, but I’ve come to the point—or rather the age—where I believe my health is better served by abstaining. Goodbye vodka martinis. Goodbye manhattans. Goodbye shots of tequila at my favorite Mexican food restaurant. It was fun while it lasted. Hello green tea.

2. When Herman and I travel, I always take my computer and spend a few hours writing each day. But this year will be different. When I’m on vacation, I will also take a break from writing. No work while traveling. Those trips will be devoted solely to Herman and I spending time together.

3. Over the past year, even when my friends and social media were violently ridiculing Trump and the GOP, I’ve done what I consider an admiral job of not dissing people personally, even people I abhor. I will continue to try my best to always speak/post positively about people, or say nothing at all. That also applies to gossiping about people I know.

2018 Goals:

1. Aggressively market my upcoming novel, Surviving Immortality.

2. Finish Beyond The Cage, my latest manuscript. I’ve recently completed the first draft.

3. Compete a first draft of a new manuscript.

4. Learn conversational Spanish. I’m still in the beginning phase. I want to move to intermediate, and be able to have conversations with Spanish speakers.

5. Play tennis with Herman at least twice per week, and take at least one long hike per week.

Another Domino Has Fallen

On my last post of 2017, I wrote:

2017 has been one of the most exciting, reward, and exceptional years of my life. The highlights included going on safari in Ranthambore National Park in Rajasthan India and getting within twenty feet of a Bengal tiger, cooking a meal for monks in a remote monastery in northern Thailand and then receiving their blessings, riding a camel for the first time, and also an elephant for the tenth time, walking five hundred and fifty miles across northern Spain on a spiritual pilgrimage, working to get my latest novel ready for publication by Dreamspinner Press, attended three wedding of nieces and nephews, and the lost three beloved friends.

It was a year of great blessings and greater heartache. Those three deaths came very close together at the end of the year. They hit us like dominos, before we could recover from the one, another hit, and another. Heartrending grief spread over a few dark months.

This morning I received news that my beloved brother-in-law, Ross, passed in the night. He had suffered Alzheimer’s disease, and had been slowly deteriorating in a nursing home these last five years. His passing is both heartbreaking and a blessing. A blessing because his quality of life in that nursing home was dreadful. He hated it, but he required constant care, which he couldn’t get at home. A heartbreak because he was a loving soul who put everyone else’s needs above his own. I greatly admired his compassionate, giving spirit.

I will miss you dearly, Brother.

A Hell of a Year

2017 has been one of the most exciting, reward, and exceptional years of my life. The highlights included going on safari in Ranthambore National Park in Rajasthan India and getting within twenty feet of a Bengal tiger, cooking a meal for monks in a remote monastery in northern Thailand and then receiving their blessings, riding a camel for the first time, and also an elephant for the tenth time, walking five hundred and fifty miles across northern Spain on a spiritual pilgrimage, working to get my latest novel ready for publication by Dreamspinner Press, attended three wedding of nieces and nephews, and the lost three beloved friends.

Herman and I spent over four months abroad visiting five countries—Thailand, India, France, Spain, and Portugal. While at home, it was our first year with our dog Trek, a lovely soul who brings joy into our lives each and every day. And we had also shared our joy and heartbreaks with old friends and new throughout a hectic social calendar.

It was a year where, for the first time, I read many more non-fiction books that fiction. My tastes are changing, apparently. I read thirty to forty books a year, and I’m drifting away from fiction, preferring books about real events, political situations, and people I admire. It makes me wonder if my writing will follow that same trend.

It was a year of great blessings and greater heartache. Those three deaths came very close together at the end of the year. They hit us like dominos, before we could recover from the one, another hit, and another. Heartrending grief spread over a few dark months.

Surprisingly, our plans for 2018 are shaping up to exceed this past year. We have two trips scheduled for the first half of the year that will take us to at least seven countries—Thailand, India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, China, France, and Spain. And once again, we are planning another five hundred mile pilgrimage, this time across France. My novel will be published in June, so I will be spending the summer working to promote the book. We don’t have a clue what the second half of 2018 will bring. Just planning the first half has been a full time job.

I’ll close out this year’s journal with a fervent wish that all my family, friends, and readers find love, peace and prosperity in 2018.

The Power of Religion to Hurt People

I’ve been reading Boy Erased by Garrard Conley. It’s a story about a gay son of a Baptist minister who got outed to his parents. They placed him in a conversion therapy camp to “cure” him, and so far in this biography, things are not going well for the young man.

It’s slow paced to the point of being numbingly boring. Yet, I find myself fascinated, not by the story line, but by the total Christian brainwashing this kid went through, and how much anguish and humiliation he suffers because of his absolute belief in God’s punishment. Being an atheist, I find it appalling that our society condones this brainwashing of innocent minds. I understand that Christians will, no doubt, turn that argument around to say that it’s being gay that has caused this person’s pain, not his belief in God. And there we must agree to disagree.

When I read stories like Boy Erased, I can’t help wishing for a world free from beliefs in Gods and Devils, heaven and hell, angles and demons.

Being an atheist does not mean one is unanchored to empathetic ideals. There are some things I’m absolutely passionate about—the Golden Rule, the need to battle cruelty in all its forms, the value of love and charity, humility and grace. One doesn’t need to be beaten over the head with a bible in order to live a compassionate life.

I’ve Finished Surviving Immortality

Christmas came a few days yearly this year. I’ve completed work on a project that began over six years ago when I was struck with an idea for a rather challenging novel.

I wanted to write a story that pitted man’s greed against his thirst for violence. That premise and the ideas for a set of characters and circumstances knocked about my head for three years before I put pen to paper and began outlining my thoughts.  As the outline took shape—something I worked with on and off for over a year—the theme metamorphosed into a saga that pitted greed and violence against integrity and compassion. It took me a year to write the first, rather long draft. Then the tedious job of editing/cutting began. Last spring I complete my five rounds of edits and sent the story to my publisher, who accepted the story but had several excellent suggestions. So began the task of working with my publisher, which turned into three more rounds of edits.

I’m happy to announce that I completed the last round of edits today. I’m now finished with the writing/editing phases. Nothing left to do but the final proofread before it goes to print in June. I will send the manuscript back to my publisher tomorrow. Six years of thoughts and conflicting ideas and writing and editing and living with my set of characters has come to an end. I’m finally free to move on.

Now the work of marketing begins. It’s a task I’m not at all accomplished at. It’s the only task having to do with writing/publishing that I don’t enjoy. But it is a necessary evil. Before that begins, however, I’m taking some time off to enjoy the feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction from having produced a story I’m truly proud of.