Celebrating Submissions & Good Books

I had mentioned earlier that one of my New Year's resolutions was to write more. Well, I've been scribbling notes for WIPs and new works, but more importantly, I've been submitting work—last week, a picture book and a chapter book. Today, I submitted10 poems to a contest.

On another note, I'm celebrating two good reads: I ordered and have begun to read, Anne Bronte's The Tenant at Wildfowl Hall (which I mentioned in last week's post on my blog next door: Victorian Scribbles). And I'm halfway through Amy Thomas's The Detective and the Woman and the Winking Tree. Expect positive reviews for both in posts to come.

What a pleasure good books are!

Celebrate the Small Things  is a blog hop co-hosted by Lexa Cain at: Lexa Cain,  L.G. Keltner @ Writing Off The Edge , and Tonja Drecker @ Tidbits Blog. (You can go to any of these sites to add your name to the links, if you want to participate. I recommend it, because it's always fun to see news that others are celebrating, and to share your own as well. )

What are you celebrating this week? Did you make New Year resolutions? If so, were you able to start applying to at least one of them? If not, are you somewhat skeptical of resolutions, and do you just go with the flow or wing it each year? Any good reads to share?

Remodel? Or Revision?

http://dir.coolclips.com/Industry/Trades/Construction/Carpenters/renovations,_construction,_carpentry_vc003592.html

Lately I've been a bit irregular in my blogging due to several interruptions. Christmas holidays, of course, but the most recent one is preparing our house for a modest (but disruptive) kitchen remodel. For the last ten days, while updating my Facebook page, my photo albums, while revamping my blog, I've also been packing up dishes, pots and pans, food and spices, etc., in order to empty shelves that are going to be ripped out Wednesday so that new ones can be put in. We are having a dishwasher installed as well, so we had to go purchase one. (Yes, all these years we've been washing dishes by hand.)

http://www.clker.com/clipart-packing-boxes.html

You never know how much you've accumulated until you have to empty your kitchen of every single item that isn't an appliance. This has also turned into a "down-sizing" event in general: I've been combing through drawers and closets in other rooms as well as the kitchen, sorting through items and taking bags and boxes to various thrift stores in the area--all the while wondering, what on earth makes us accumulate things we don't use or need? I actually started some of this purge before Christmas on the premise that someone else might have a happier Christmas as a result of my clean-out. One person's "cast off" really is another person's "great find". I know, because I hang out at thrift stores. The purge has also progressed to the basement and the garage; and I have to say, it feels great to be less encumbered. 

http://www.freeclipartnow.com/education/books/books.jpg.html

But as I've been sorting, deciding what to keep and what to eliminate, I couldn't help noticing the parallels to revising and editing a book. (See? Once a writer, everything becomes relevant to writing.) Isn't that what we do in a rewrite? Pare down. Pull out what isn't essential to the story. Decide what to keep, what to eliminate. (In some cases, what to save for another story with a better fit--not too different from trundling items over to another location, like a thrift store, where they can be put to better use.)


Maybe it's the effect of the year turning--out with the old, in with the new--but I seem to be revising and editing everywhere I look: my WIP, my blog, my Facebook, our home. "Eliminate clutter" is becoming my mantra for the year--and it wasn't even on my list of New Year's resolutions.


Feels good, though.


How about you? What revisions are going on in your life at the dawn of this new year?