A new year

New YearFourteen days into 2012, I finally have the courage to abandon my 2011 New Year’s Resolution. I’m not slinking away from the field, ashamed of failure. In fact, I think my performance on the 2011 resolution was gold-standard. I played the lottery. Faithfully. Enthusiastically. Expensively. There were a few glimmers of the shining remuneration possible. Two bucks on a scratch off ticket, several numbers on a mega millions. One  autumn evening at the grocery store, I won fifty bucks on a scratch off. Not much, but enough to stoke the fire of my resolution.

Nope. I didn’t win the lottery in 2011. But I found good fortune in other ways. A short story published. A novel published. Contracts for two more novels in 2012.  Instead of beginning the new year with a pile of cash clogging my bank account, I’m beginning it with a different pay-off. This is my year to read more, write more, publish more, and connect with readers who, with a little luck, will enjoy my books.

What is my resolution for 2012? To get a literary agent and move toward making writing my full-time profession. Will I still stop my shopping cart next to the instant lotto machine and dig through my purse for a crisp bill? Maybe. My next novel comes out in February. Its title? Her Lucky Catch. I guess I can’t toss my fascination with luck over my shoulder quite yet.