Late Bloomers

My priority project with the most priority? One more revision of what I hope will be my debut novel. I also hope, as a mom old enough to have three adult children, it isn't too late to begin a fiction-writing career.

Though I make no claims to latent genius, I'm encouraged by Malcolm Gladwell's essay, “Late Bloomers: Why Do We Equate Genius with Precocity?” We may think that creative genius “requires the freshness and exuberance and energy of youth,” but that's not necessarily true.

Prodigies are conceptual, says economist David Galenson, “in the sense that they start with a clear idea of where they want to go, and then they execute it.” Late bloomers take more of an experimental approach, “revising and despairing and changing course” on the long journey to recognition and acclaim.

I'm not sure that the reasons are always as complex as Twain's and Cezanne's experiences indicate. I probably could have written that debut novel in an earlier season of my life. But at what cost to my family? After all, I was already juggling a full-time job and, for several years, working toward a graduate degree.

Just another reason the empty nest days are dazzlin' days -- late bloomers we may be, but our blossoms can be just as lovely!

Help! The Year Has Started Without Me!

Like a lot of my other ambitious, motivated, and introspective fellow sojourners, I spent the days leading into 2010 resolving resolutions, gathering goals, and pondering passions. Before baby new year took it's first toddling steps, I had pretty much prioritized my projects and pursuits.

But our home-from-college son was still hanging out, or at least sleeping (sometimes till noon), at home so I couldn't get too serious about getting back on track.

Then the day after Nate flew back to his Oklahoma campus, I packed up my laptop, books, novel manuscript, cross-stitch project, and clothes and drove to Tampa. The next morning, our daughter had surgery. Somebody (me!) had to give her and her husband a helping hand with their two energetic boys.

I'm still here, a week after her surgery, changing diapers, giving kisses before naps, reading bedtime stories. (And, yes, I'm also unloading and loading the dishwasher, folding laundry, and sweeping the floor.)

I may not have jumped into 2010 with zeal and purpose. But a couple of nights I stayed up way past my bedtime and listened to Nate talk about college classes and friends. And now I'm spending quantity time (a healthy mix of chaos and peace) with my grandboys and their parents.

January speeds by while even my priority projects languish. So be it.

Next week I'll be home, back to a routine, back to my beloved grindstone.

And missing Nate coming in late.

And missing Jeremy's ceaseless questions.

And missing Jedidiah's impish baby grin.

Reading Challenge: 10-10-10

"Reading is the creative center of a writer's life," writes Stephen King in his classic, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (p. 147).

Here's a reading challenge that lets you read old favorites and expand your literary horizons: Read ten books in ten genres by October 10, 2010. The genres can be however you define them. Here are mine:

• C. S. Lewis (by and about)
• J. R. R. Tolkien (by and about)
• Christian Classics
• Children's Classics
• Short Stories & Plays/Epic Poems
• Modern Library Top 100 List
• Books on Writing/Career
• Inspirational Fiction
• Fiction Miscellany
• Nonfiction Miscellany

Completed books: Peace Like a River by Leif Enger (Inspirational Fiction) and The Tsarina's Daughter by Carolly Erickson (Fiction Miscellany).

Currently reading: The Silmarillion (Tolkien) and My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers (Christian Classics.

I'm also reading A Circle of Quiet by Madeleine L'Engle, but I'm not sure what category it goes in.

We're writers and we're readers. So grab your library card, join a book exchange, or browse the shelves at your favorite bookstore to get started on your own 10-10-10 reading challenge. And let me know your ten genres.

New Year's Resolutions -- For Keeps

The first week of a new year is a great time to curl up in your favorite chair with How to Reach Your Full Potential for God by Dr. Charles F. Stanley. His seven essentials provide a compelling framework for those of us who can’t resist the urge to make resolutions. The book’s path to healthy hearts, minds, and bodies is paved with spiritual insights and practical suggestions.

For example, Essential #1: A Clean Heart encourages us to set our hearts toward purity. In this chapter, Dr. Stanley discusses the power of daily abiding in Scripture and God’s call for “us to actively and intentionally yield our entire selves to His will on a day-to-day basis.” Essential #4: A Healthy Body presents practical advice on sleep, nutrition, and exercise. Other essentials discuss such topics as relationships, scheduling, and taking risks.

The motivational book provides a Godly foundation for this year’s resolutions. The prayerful resolve to improve oneself and grow spiritually within the seven essentials may prove stronger than the making of isolated, easy-to-make/easy-to-break goals. May this be the year to live the book’s subtitle: “Never Settle for Less than His Best.”

(NOTE: I received a complimentary copy of this book from Thomas Nelson, Inc.)

Priority Projects

My writing resolutions aren't SMART goals, so I'm calling them Priority Projects instead. Here they are in their unadorned skivvies (in other words, the basics).

Dream Trail

• Polish Twirl (renamed When Sparrow Falls);
• "Snowflake" a previously abandoned novel; and
• Devote at least twenty-five to thirty hours per week on fiction projects.

Publishing Trail

• One query/submission per week.
• Write every day.
• Update blogs at least once a week.

The details are more complex, but these priorities fit on a postcard that I've placed in a prominent place in my Daytimer. And they're easy to remember.

What are your writing priorities for 2010?

Passionate Pursuits

Goals The word hangs in the air, casting its long shadow across the falling grains of sand in Time's hourglass, a pall over our good intentions. To join in the New Year's emphasis on resolutions, I wrote this poetic treatise.

Goals: A Poem

Make 'em.

Break 'em.

Actually, I make goals every year. Sometimes I even keep them.

Sometimes I go beyond them.

Passionate Pursuits A couple of days ago, I found a list of 24 potential hobbies and interests from July 2005. A few I've already embraced or accomplished. Some no longer interest me.

Two intrigued me -- one of those aha kind of moments. So in 2010, I'm going to:

• learn how to operate that expensive camera we bought for our daughter's wedding two years ago;
• participate in Florida's State Forest Trailwalker Program.

Goals guide us.

Passionate pursuits propel us.

You've been thinking about goals. Now think about your passions. What are you pursuing this year?

Fanatics

My oldest and my youngest are shivering in the rain at the Gator Bowl. Bethany and Nathaniel are longtime Seminole fans so they're ecstatic to participate in college football history.

3:26 pm text message: Sun came out, not freezing anymore. All food places running out of food.

I indulge in my fanaticism tomorrow at the Seventh Annual Lord of the Rings Extended Version Movie Marathon with the bonus showing of The Hunt for Gollum. Here's a photo from last year's gathering the fellowship faithful.

The posters was a gift from my son-in-law. Somehow he talked a video store into letting him have them and then he passed them on to me.