Natalie--The Lite Version

Image courtesy of piyato / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

After contemplating various words as my Word for the Year 2014, I finally picked one: Light.  To me, there are so many directions to go with this word:

1. Health: Recently I visited a holistic doctor who wanted me to lower my sugar intake and increase my fruits and vegetables.  Urghhh…But I have been suffering from various esophageal problems for a couple of years.  So I know I need to do this.  So, sticking with my word, I want to eat lighter—less red meats, less sugar, less GMO-filled, boxed foods…more healthy.  If it ends up making me lighter, too, well terrific.

2. Lighting my Load: A couple of years ago, I read a wonderful Zen fable: "Carrying the Burden."  The message: not to continue carrying our burdens long after the situation has passed.  I want to forgive and forget—feel like weights are off of me this year.  So after someone honks at me on the highway, wave to them and LET IT GO…lighten up.

3. Posture: When I first heard this word as a possibility, my immediate thing to do was sit up in my chair.  To feel lighter would be to lift myself up physically.  A dance teacher once said to picture a string pulling you up from the top of your head.  That's how I want to feel.  When I stand straighter/taller, I do feel different: more confident, more fit.

4. Having a Lighter House: This one is both figurative and literal.  I want my house to lose weight—as in, if I put it on a scale right now, I want it to weigh about 40% less by the end of the year.  Time to purge.  I have way too much stuff just sitting around.  And this fits another of my wishes for the year—to be more charitable.  I have a ton of great stuff that someone else can use.  Now it's a matter of getting it to them.

5. The Sun: the Official Lightener/Lighter/Light of the Earth: And I can't leave out the science-y definition for light: the energy source.  I want to get outside more.  I'm an advocate for No Child Left Inside, so I need to get myself and my kids out more.  I love writing about insects.  Where's a better place to have an office than outside? 

That's my goal.  I hope that December 31 I can report that I have, indeed, become a lighter person.

My Word-for-the-Year brainstorming session

Starting Off the Year with Exercise--A Writing One

New Years is a time for new goals and new projects.  This year I will be participating in Start the Year Off Write: 21 days of 21 writing exercises.  The challenge is for children's writers of all sorts: picture book, middle grade, and young adult.  And, get this: there is even a prize for completing each day's exercise: the chance to win a critique by an editor, an agent, or a copy editor.  Definitely worth trying.

What I hope to gain: an incite into my novels that I didn't have before.  Sometimes it just takes looking at something a little different to get that a-ha moment.

So I hope you'll join me--it's only 21 days out of your life but might give you that new-year jump start you need.