Month: December 2009

I admit that I’m kind of awful at New Year’s types of thoughts. I can never really pull off a list of resolutions that I actually can keep, I am not all that great at looking back and saying, “See, this is what we did in the last year!” because I barely have a grip on what I did yesterday. It’s kind of a problem, actually. But, I’ve been thinking about this, because I realize it’s not just the end of a year, but the end of another decade, and everyone is doing those huge retrospective types of essays – best books, best films, best movies – worst weather –blah, blah blah, so I’ve been forced into thought.

(Don’t you hate it when that happens?)

I can only look at this retrospective in terms of Most Changes. My life has really changed in the last ten years.

Let me count the ways: first trip to Europe. Three changes from apartment to house to another house, in three different town. First home purchased. Graduate school for Tech Boy. MFA for me. Nephew One. Move to Scotland. First visit to Eastern Europe and Italy. Nephew Two.

Life is not all smooth sailing. Other enormous changes – less personal, in one way, and more personal, in another, happened, too. Sometimes the changes that happen to other people are the worst, because you can no longer assume that they are exactly the same person that you knew. My older sister eloped with someone none of us had ever met – surprise! My eldest sister graduated with a double Master’s degree, and the following autumn, found out she had cancer. Losing two aunts and an uncle – on the same side of the family – to the same disease in the last ten years means looking down the voracious gullet of a very scary beast. My grandmother, incapacitated by Alzheimer’s, watches me at times with suspicion-clouded eyes…

Big challenges, these. The type that put a mirror in front of you, force you to look at what is, and to consider who you are, and who you could be.

The economy in 2009 alone has been so horrific that almost everyone I know has been rocked. I know very well that we are among the fortunate ones. Only one lay off in this ten year span, one financial shortfall that wasn’t planned. The boat has rocked, but we haven’t gone under. How could we, with the buoying blessing of me achieving my dream of being published, and finding a receptive editor for not one, but two books? How could we, with the insane – yet insanely energizing – adventure of moving lock, stock and barrel to the UK for four years while Tech Boy pursues his PhD? How could we, held close by our friends, who join vicariously in our wanderlust, and keep us linked to them with stories of their own journeys? A few sharp storms, this past year. A few squalls which blew us into seas unknown. But we sail on.

So, you’ve already got your resolutions list written? Seriously? I have an idea or two on what I’m going to be doing next year.

I’m going to write. I’m going to read. I’m not sure about the other details…

I might learn to crochet. I could stop eating chocolate. Eventually I’ll send out all my Christmas packages (D’oh!). Anything could happen.

And that remains the finest part of the new year, for me – the not-knowing. The plain, unblemished page of the unknown. Nothing planned, nothing quite certain, except the inevitable dues of the body and the demands of the government, also known as Death & Taxes. Other than that, everything else is up in the air, held aloft by expectation.

Unrivaled possibility.

It’s time to pull up the anchor. A wind is rising and filling our sails, propelling us into a new year. The name of the wind is Hope.

Happy New Year. In 2010, may you discover that you are better at living than you could have ever dreamed you would be.

It’s been a quiet week at Temporary Casa T., mainly because I am working hard and fast on doing the last few edits for a new manuscript before my editor vanishes into a haze of Christmas lights and spinning dreidels. The other reason is because I’m spending a lot of time in the middle of packed auditoriums and tucked up against the kitchen table in the home of friends, people watching.

Anna Karenina begins with a line that Tolstoy actually used in one other book. He said, “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

I’ve always hated that quote. Maybe because it’s too general; maybe because there’s no such thing as a full-time happy family. Maybe the shape of what makes family, the texture of the true meaning of the word, includes friends and people at the library you see every Monday, and people you see at the hospital coffee shop every Wednesday at noon. Maybe family is neither as small nor predictable as Tolstoy imagined, but something more.

That’s what I’ve been seeing, anyway. And taking notes.

Christine Carlson from the Salem Church Branch of the Central Rappahannock Regional Library (Man, Virginia has some seriously fun names to spell!) wrote to tell me that MARE’S WAR is “a finalist nominated for our CSK mock awards in 2010!” Christine, thanks for the news! The Coretta Scott King Awards are something people still debate each year, as to whether or not we need them… I have waffled on this point in the past considered the issue from all sides, and still do. (I’ve also continued to visit the School Library Journal mock Newbery blog Heavy Medal, and watching which books they’re reading. I don’t think MARE’S WAR will come up; not enough “buzz.” But, we’ll see!)

As many reviewing bodies are shutting down (I’m *still* spun over Kirkus, which was an institution since 1933!!) it may turn out that the book awards carry the day, to be the people school librarians and booksellers can count on to have read the books they can’t get to, and point out some sterling but unknown reads. Books chosen simply on the basis of buzz and awards…? I’m not sure how I feel about that… because some good books never get awards. I’m really conflicted! On the other hand, the people who have done the work on booklists like the Amelia Bloomer and CSK continue to do their thing, and highlight specific kinds of books, and it’s good to know that at least two libraries (Hi, Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Indiana!) have nominated me for the mock award, even if it never becomes real. It’s truly nice just to be considered.

Speaking of the Amelia Bloomer nominations, they are being discussed at the ALA Midwinter Meeting in Boston. There are some really great books on there with MARE’S WAR, and I’m excited that I have SFF author Saci Lloyd’s The Carbon Diaries, 2015, right here in my hot little hands to read today. Woot!

And now it’s time for breakfast and ten pounds of the Sunday paper at my Uncle P’s house, where we will all stare at him as he does the crossword in ink. (Some PEOPLE.) Happy Reading. Happy Sunday.