A New Year Plan

The first month of the New Year is almost over so I thought I’d take stock of what I’ve done so far to get closer to the realization of my dreams and aspirations.

Since reaching and surpassing my 50^th birthday ( I am now 52), I have determined to partake of my own brand of extreme makeover, and in the process, I've set some major goals for myself.  Instead of proclaiming the normal “resolutions” for the New Year, I’ve decided that reaching my goals should be more of a lifestyle change as well as a life-long endeavor.  So, my quest to better myself is as follows:

Get closer to God through an increase in prayer and studying His Word.                    

I need what the old saints refer to as a Refreshing.  Life sort of beat me down in 2010, I went through some things that I NEVER thought would happen to me. Yet, through the Grace of God, I survived. I'm reminded that in 2011, strengthening my relationship with the Father is essential for every other phase of my success.  Unfortunately, life and the process of living it can get in the way, pushing back what's most important.

           

Recognizing that God is my source of peace, love, financial stability, creativity, and everything else that keeps me afloat prevents me from giving up. My relationship with Jesus is what helps me through the daily bombardment of issues, worldly as well as personal that tend to overwhelm the soul.  I'm glad to know that everything that concerns me, concerns Him, and that He has instructed me through His Word to cast my cares upon Him because He cares for me. 

Get my writing career in gear.

As an employee of my city's Board of Education, I usually have summers off (Hallelujah)!  This leaves plenty of time to work on my own projects (I've been asked but rarely work summer school).  Now, what has happened over the years is that I've done NOTHING, made NO PREPARATIONS, and I end up struggling for 2 months to make ends meet.  Well, I’m working to change all of that this year.  If necessary, I’ll bite the bullet and work summer school, but my original plan, with the help of the Lord, is to write, write, write, and self-publish more of my work.  I also am looking to enter a few contests and get my feet wet by having others critique my work (OUCH!)  

I’ve come to realize that I absolutely must do a little each day toward marketing my work, developing a major internet presence, and getting myself in the public arena.  It is my goal to match and then exceed my salaried income.  The public school system I work for is undergoing some serious changes, and not for the better of its support staff. Lay-offs are many and are becoming more frequent.  It is painfully evident that I cannot (nay, I will not) be at the mercy of my employer any longer.  Yet, establishing myself as a creative force takes time, so I figure I'd better get started now. 

Losing weight.

Okay, I know.  This is just about everyone's New Years Resolution. However, I started before the end of the year due to health reasons.  My doctor diagnosed me with a lot of nasty stuff, and I simply refuse to go out that way!  I am currently on meds but I don’t intend for this to be a permanent situation.  The weight must come off.  I've set goals of how much weight I want to lose and I am determined to move around a lot more. 

Well, here's my plan for the year.  Have you moved closer to your dreams?

                 

Harlem Renaissance Time

Had I been a part

of that

Harlem Renaissance…

the creations of colorful

people of

COLOR

in this joint

that joint

and the other,

perhaps…

I would’ve run

into Langston Hughes,

who I guarantee you

would’ve surely

been my Lover.

We’d listen to

Songbirds chime,

drink literary wine,

in this

Harlem Renaissance time,

when Langston Hughes

would’ve surely

been my Lover.

Musings of an old Newbie

When I first decided that I was going to write for a living, I was in my 20's and full of fresh ideas.  I considered myself to be the quintessential wordsmith of my neighborhood.  I was doing the poetry circuit around the greater Detroit Area, was reading at coffee houses, and had numerous poems and articles in anthologies and newspapers.  Once, I even had an editorial piece I did for a local newspaper read in a 4th grade class by my boss's son.  She was very impressed and called my phone from her office to tell me how even more impressed her son's teacher and classmates were with my essay.  Wow, I thought, this could be the beginning of something amazing. 

Fast forward to the present, and I'm still waiting for the beginning of the amazing thing to happen.  The difference is that now, at the tender age of 52, I realize that your dreams can take more work to accomplish than the everyday grind so many of us are trying to free ourselves from.  Routine, sister to familiarity and her evil twin, procrastination, can also breed contempt; either for change, or for altering what has over a period of a lifetime, become the norm.

In the day of the superfast information highway known as the internet (boy, that Al Gore is really something, isn't he?), you would think that it'd be pretty easy to get the word out about your products and/or services.  Well it is, for those people who are highly adept at (oh, how I hate this dreaded term) MARKETING.

Marketing, the nightmare of every creative person whose only wish is to create and have people knocking down one's door for the next fabulous creation of the century.  Add social networking to the pot and according to the experts, you have a whole new arena of potential customers, patrons, or whatever terminology you want to use.  For some, at least according to the millions of emails I get from the marketing gurus, this new area of business networking is the best thing since ketchup.  For me, it simply means more work than I had initially anticipated.

All griping aside, I'm fairly excited about my new choice of careers.  I am a writer and have been since I was 8 years old.  I created my own comic books and wrote lyrics to go with instrumental songs I'd hear on the radio.  And now, after a mere 46 years, I've finally decided that I'm willing to do whatever it takes, marketing wise, to get my work out there.  I sold my first short story as a ghostwriter last week. And I've just uploaded a collection of poetry for Kindle on Amazon.com and on Smashwords.com entitled, Affirmations: and Other Poems, under the pen name Cherrie Lynn.  I'll be featuring the book here on my blog as well for sale as an ebook.

This blog was created to share my writing dreams, aspirations, triumphs and failures, as the case may be. And once I make that transition to becoming the next J.K. Rowling, you'll all be my witnesses;)