Everyone but me seems to be packing away Christmas decorations, evaluating the past year and making resolutions for the new one. Everyone but me. Other people are clearing away their mental and physical clutter, ready to dive with fresh determination into 2010’s challenges. Me? I’m less than enthusiastic.

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Part of me is ready to move out of holiday mode and return to routine while another part is procrastinating because I’m not quite ready to tackle what’s waiting for me.

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You see, I have two works in progress, both novels, one of which has been haunting me for months. I put it aside last fall in favour of making a start on something new during NaNoWriMo. Why I put it aside is perfectly explained in a post by Katie Ganshart. I swear she was reading my journal when she composed it!

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She starts out saying, “I’m reading through my rough draft of Wishing on Willows. Makes my stomach knot up like a tangled string of Christmas lights. I keep forcing myself to take deep, calming breaths. I keep reminding myself that this is how I always feel when I read through a first draft. My reminders do very little. Panic has its way. It perches inside my chest and heaves like a raving lunatic. Can you really fix this? Is this story even redeemable?”

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Oh, how I know that feeling! I’ve revised, reorganized, reworked, revamped, attempted to revitalize. I’ve done it all and still it reads like the pages of yesterday’s newspaper. Or the telephone book. Or an outdated shopping list. You get the idea. So I took a break from it. Now that it’s time to get back to work I would be happier returning to my newer novel but that know-it-all part of my conscience says I need to finish the other first.

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Katie’s probably right. She says, “The only remedy? Roll up my sleeves and get to work.” I guess it’s time to get the gears in motion.

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Now that the holidays are over what project is beckoning for your attention?

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It’s New Year’s Eve and [cough, cough] I’m trying desperately to [cough] pull thoughts from my medicated mind for a brilliant year-end post. [cough, gag] Alas, it isn’t happening. Tylenol, Benylin and Otrivin have done their numbing routine on my brain and when I poke it for ideas only drivel flows out. [hack, hack]

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I’m absolutely, positively going to bed before midnight so, [cough, hack] from my location under an afghan on the couch, sipping a steamy hot Chai [cough] while admiring the sparkling tree lights, [no, of course I haven’t taken it down yet] toasting myself opposite a cozy fire and listening to my favourite Josh Groban “Noel” CD, [oh, give it up, Carol; you can’t sound literary no matter how you try so just say HAPPY NEW YEAR and be done with it] I’ll just say HAPPY NEW YEAR to all of you. [I’m not dying; it’s just a cold… cough, cough, cough.]

Pushed by a bitter breeze, tiny whitecaps scuttled over the waves while layers of winter-tinted cotton batting clouds stretched across the sapphire sky mimicking the mountainous shoreline. From inside the ferry’s forward lounge we admired the view. Maybe if we hadn’t known it was the first full day of winter we might have been lulled into taking a walk on the deck. Watching other more venturesome passengers with chins burrowed into their jackets, bent into the wind and clutching at hats, however, I was less inclined to be enticed outside.

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It was a beautiful day, full of anticipation as we travelled to Vancouver Island for Christmas week with some of our family. There were grandchildren to see, special worship services to attend, Christmas gifts to share, family doings to catch up on, turkey and trimmings to consume (and consume it we did; you can never have too much turkey).

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It’s been a wonderful week, but now suddenly it’s time to head homeward again. We’re into the last week of December. I don’t relish leaving our family, but there are different things to anticipate at the other end of our return ferry trip… new beginnings to accompany the coming New Year.

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What are you looking forward to in the New Year? Have your writing goals changed?

At this time of the year we encounter hope everywhere. A child hopes there will be that one special gift under the tree; a student hopes for a passing grade on school exams; an employee hopes for a year-end bonus; perhaps a family hopes a distant loved one will be home for Christmas; or maybe a street person hopes for shelter and a hot meal on a frigid night.

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Writers know all about hope, too. Some days we simply hope for inspiration. Or if we’ve written and revised repeatedly, we hope to catch an agent’s attention or a publisher’s interest. If there is a published book we hope for the support of enthusiastic readers.

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Hope is often a fragile commodity… tenuous. Unlike faith which steadfastly believes, hope wants to believe but isn’t always confident.

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At Christmas, however, we celebrate the realization of a hope that was born of God’s promise — the salvation of mankind by One who was born to die.

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Halleluia! Christ is born!

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Wishing everyone rich blessings and a joy-filled Christmas.

Through the years my husband has wound umpteen dozen strings of lights around our Christmas trees… and unwound them… and rewound them. It’s hard to tell if they’re perfectly spaced even when the strings are lit up, so he does “the squint test”. Peering at the tree while squinting removes all the visual distractions except the small sparkles of illumination. He likes them to be exactly right.

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This year our tree looked lovely – the treasured family heirloom ornaments glistened among our collection of snowflakes, frosted pinecones, and a few red balls for a festive touch. And then the lights went out. Actually, just one string went out – the new, supposed-to-last-for-years LED’s just faded away and left the top quarter of the tree dark. Drat!!

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So we un-decorated that section, removed the string and replaced it with another, and then redecorated. There. Now it was lovely again… until the next evening when another set of the lights slowly faded out to nothing, this time mid-way down the tree. To replace that string would have required removal of a great number of the decorations as well as the beaded swags, so we did some minor tweaking, rearranged a few nearby lights and then resigned ourselves to ignoring the imperfection, but it’s hard to do. You know how it is. The lights form the backdrop for all the other ornaments. This errant string leaves a darkened gap right in the middle. But we don’t have any family coming to visit this Christmas so no one else will see it.  Later when we’re putting everything back into storage we’ll discard that string so we don’t forget and try to use it again next year.

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It’s a little like my first novel. I wanted it to be perfect but it was written before I learned what writing was meant to be. Peering critically at it reveals weaknesses. There are gaps that no amount of rearranging is going to fix. I know; I’ve tried. The underlying plot is flawed. The story needs a total rewrite but that would be more work than I think it’s worth. So I’m resigned to its imperfection and have stashed it in the dusty depths of oblivion better known as the closet. No one is ever going to see it.

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What do you do with your less-than-perfect writing efforts? Are you able to discard them or do you keep trying to make them better? How do you decide if they’re worth the effort?

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Katie and Sherrinda decided we should have an Official Kissing Day Blogfest today. It’s apparently in honour of mistletoe but there’s no sign of mistletoe in our house this year. There’s everything else seasonal – the crèche, a decorated tree, garlands and lights on the mantle, a pine wreath on the front door, and even a little Victorian village alight on top of the stereo – but nothing to use as an excuse for kissing. Oh, who needs an excuse anyway? Merry Christmas and a buss on the cheek to you! Thanks for stopping by to check out my Blogfest contribution. Visit Sherrinda’s blog for links to all the other participants.

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Meghan rested her forehead against the cool glass and stared out through the rivulets of rain. It had been a week now and still the void ached. She wrapped her arms around her waist and remembered.

“You’re shivering,” said Bruce from behind her. “The fireplace is on in the den if you want somewhere warmer to work.

“I can’t write. There’s nothing there. I’m s-so empty,” Meghan’s voice broke.

Bruce moved closer and enfolded her in a hug, his breath brushing the back of her neck with a whisper.

“It’ll get better, Babe. It will. And we’ll try again.”

She leaned into him with a sigh. Her head told her he was right. It was every other part of her that didn’t quite believe it. They had waited eight years for this almost-miracle, only to have it evaporate before they had barely adjusted to its presence.

“We will, won’t we?” he asked, craning his head around to peer at her from the side.

“Can we not decide this right now?” Meghan straightened and tried to move away but Bruce tightened his grasp just long enough to drop a kiss on the edge of her ear. Then he stepped back and let her go.

The sound of her jabbing at a log in the fireplace filled the silence as he stared through the window at the rain-obscured view.

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Love it or hate it, Christmas music is everywhere at this time of the year. Department stores, elevators, waiting rooms, hairdressing salons, even mall parking lot loudspeakers send out a non-stop loop of the familiar sounds of the season. Personally, I love the Christmas music — mostly the hymns and sacred songs; the tacky renditions of who the reindeer ran over, not so much.

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Janna at Something She Wrote admits to experiencing caroling overload but drew attention to a catchy version of The Twelve Days of Christmas that’s just too good not to share. Thanks, Janna!

Do you know where you’re going? Most of us have a destination in mind when we start on a journey. If the route isn’t entirely clear we may check Google Maps or program our GPS because we like the security of knowing how we’ll get there. What do we do once we’re under way and an unexpected roadblock crops up? On well-travelled roads our GPS may suggest an alternate route, but that’s not always an option.

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This summer, many miles from a public road, we worked our way towards our northern cabin. We always travel well prepared with chainsaw and shovel for such things as fallen trees and mud holes. But around a curve we encountered an obstacle that left us stymied.

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Now what? In this remote location there was no one to offer assistance. Our best friend was our Dodge 4×4 dually. We backtracked and came at our cabin from a different direction, an eight kilometer adventure.

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We found a solution, but if, as I’m sure you’ve caught on, this were an allegory for writing, and the insurmountable obstruction happened in the middle of your story, how would you deal with it?

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When your characters suddenly carry you to an unexpected dead end do you abandon the story, start over again, or do you use a little ingenuity and take the opportunity to embark on an adventure?

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Bundled into warm woolens I walk with the dog through the woods behind our house to the marsh beyond. Pristine snow etches every blade and branch in Currier and Ives fashion. Billows of mist rise from the surface of snow-laden water. The stillness is a silence into which God whispers a reminder that Christmas is coming, a time when his creation will honour him.

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On the return walk I discover a line of tracks along the edge of the back lawn. Like subtle clues in a story they share a secret of wildlife nearby, hidden somewhere in the trees. A mystery, until I stoop to examine the tracks and see they were made by a deer.

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I love mystery in any manuscript – being tantalized by suggestions that hover just out of sight until the moment of discovery.

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Question for you:

How do you incorporate mystery – or that all important element of suspense – into the pages of your stories when the genre is other than a true mystery?

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Do you remember the archaic and clichéd image of the 19^th century woman ducking into ye auld hat shoppe to find some frothy headpiece that would placate her frustrations? That’s so not me! Oh, I used to wear hats, at least to church. Didn’t every minister’s wife do the hat and white gloves thing? Fortunately for my hairdo, hats eventually became an optional adornment — and disappeared from my closet.

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No, next only to a book store my “thing” is always a stationery store. I love browsing for fresh notebooks, handling pens to find one that my fingers find just right, and checking out anything that might make my novel writing more pleasurable, less frustrating.

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So when one of my NaNoWriMo winner’s bonuses turned out to be a significant discount on a popular writing program I had to check it out. All the reviews on ‘Scrivener‘ seem to be positive so I finally succumbed to the fluttering “Shall I get it?” butterflies and clicked on “buy now” and “download”. Now I’ve done it! I have my hands on another toy — something else to spend time exploring instead of writing. But I’m hoping it will soon be like a new pen — a comfortable and productive new writing tool.

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“Scrivener is a word processor and project management tool created specifically for writers of long texts such as novels and research papers.” It is only available for the Macintosh platform, OS X 10.4 or higher.

Features

	Edit Multiple Documents Create limitless documents in the same project and edit them separately or merge them dynamically and edit them as a whole.
	Corkboard Virtual index cards store a synopsis for every document you create. Storyboard and rearrange your project by moving them around on the corkboard.
	Outlining A fully-featured outliner helps you take control of the structure of your work.
	Keywords Use a powerful keywords system to keep track of characters, themes or ideas.
	Full Screen Editing View your text in full screen for distraction-free composition.
	Export Export your finished draft to your favourite word processor for final formatting, including support for footnotes, annotations and images.

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Questions: What tools do you find indispensable for your writing? Do you use the ‘Scrivener’ software or any other writing software? Have you any recommendations or tips?

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