New Beginnings

Happy New Year! I hope everyone has had a pleasant start for 2015. Our weather has been wintry, for San Diego, and it has been nice to have a few days off to rest up and prepare for all of the various projects I want to work on.

One of my goals for the year is to write, simply write and complete projects I have. Sounds easy but this task has turned out to be a challenge for me. I have too many ideas and bad habits which I need to change. So, it’s time to start making changes, one day at a time. I’m not expecting to suddenly finish up a novel in the next month but I do expect to sit down each day and write something. Part of my writing will be for this blog, the other part will be writing for books authored by my husband, myself or both of us.

One of my current projects is working with my husband on a book about our life with our autistic son. Our intent is to share our experiences of coping with autism and how our family is still a family. My husband has finished his second pass at the book so now it’s my turn to read through, add in some pictures and photos and beef up the content, where needed.

Writing about our family life has brought back a lot of memories for both of us and we think that our book will help other families dealing with autism. We are also including insights about our challenges so that other people will have a better understanding and see children and adults with autism as people first. I found the quote “Different, not less”* and our family would like to make our small contribution to show that yes, we are different, we have extra challenges but we are not any less a family or people than anyone else facing the challenges of parenthood.

I am also working on a fantasy book that I’ve outlined. In order to get a better feel for the characters and the world I am going to write short stories and post those on my blog. I have had great fun defining the character for the first story and I now have a better idea of what to write. I feel like writing these short stories will help me work out techniques for writing on my larger novel that is set in the same world.

In addition, I plan to write bits and pieces about family life and the projects I work on in between writing. I have been posting short bits and pieces on Facebook, now I plan to write about items for my blog. There are some other ideas I have that I will probably throw in as well, such as writing about making incremental changes in my life and an explanation of the inside of a computer.

I have a long list of projects I want to work on, which can be intimidating to think about. I’ve decided to focus on one small piece at a time and focus on finishing that piece. By doing that I will get something done instead of never getting started. I will make mistakes along the way but I remember another quote “The master has failed more times than the beginner has ever tried.”** I have a long way to go, but I’m taking small steps and moving closer to a goal of writing and earning money from that writing.

Again, a Happy New Year and may you all find the way to take steps toward the goals of your heart.

*Temple Grandin, author Thinking in Pictures, Different, Not Less

**Stephen McCranie, author of Mal and Chad