My Three-Word New Year's Resolution

 Last year I made the world's most convoluted set of new year's goals, which predictably failed. 

This year I'm making an extremely simple new year's goal, which I'm summing up for myself in a three-word mantra.

Bliss, not dread.

Last year, in writing two verse novels for young readers, I discovered a pleasure in writing that went beyond joy to BLISS. These two books (one, The Lost Language, set for publication in September 2021; the other awaiting an initial verdict from my editor) have been judged by all early readers to be BY FAR my best books. My agent even emailed me a couple of months after selling the first one to ask me, "What HAPPENED? How did YOU write THIS?" (He didn't use those exact words, but that was the the gist of his question.) 

I'm still not sure what the answer is. Part of it is that the verse novel form invited me to pour out my soul with a new honesty onto the page. Part of it is that in both books I tackled bigger and harder subjects than usual (though this isn't quite true; I'd already written about divorce, death, and mental illness - but not with this same new power). All I really know is that I LIKE BLISS. I WANT MORE BLISS. Bliss apparently brings out the best in me as a writer. It's pretty darned good for me as a person, too.

Last year I also found unusual dread in other areas of my professional life. Thanks in part to the COVID close-down of all in-person activities, I developed new self-doubt about myself as a teacher, as I was forced to teach online and grapple with technologies challenging for this technophobe. I also struggled with a huge academic assignment that was beyond my self-appraised level of competence. When I woke up in the morning, knowing that I would have to force myself to trudge forward on these tasks, I faced the day with a sick knot of dread in my stomach. (Hollins University Graduate Programs in Children's Literature: I am not talking about teaching for you!! You remain a reliable source of bliss!)

I tried to talk myself out of the dread. For one of the online courses, I told myself, look you are really only spending two hours a day on this course! And you are being paid a lot of much-needed money to do it! And as soon as you sit down at your computer and actually face the task, it's all fine and even enjoyable!! Just suck it up, buttercup!  But I still woke up each teaching day with that same knot of unshakeable dread.

What I learned from 2020: I want more bliss and less dread. As I am self-employed and able to make my own professional choices, it is within my power to act on this desire. (Though even when I was employed full-time, I did make efforts to seek out situations that would provide more of what I loved from my work and less of what I hated. We have more power to change our life situations than we realize. To quote the wonderful words of Alice Walker: "The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any.")

So my goal for 2021 is: bliss, not dread. This is NOT a SMART goal (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-based). I don't have any detailed guidelines for how to proceed and how to know if I have succeeded. But it is a DELICIOUS goal, which is what really matters for me regarding goals.  

Of course, I will still have to do some things I dread. This is called "being alive in the world as a human being." Sometimes bliss and dread are commingled: this is the case when my little granddaughters come for their monthly extended visits, which are both exhilarating and exhausting for me as their primary caregiver. As I said, I have no clear guidance right now on exactly how this plan is going to work. 

I just know that this year, when I'm faced with a choice about taking on new projects, I'm going to ask myself, "Bliss or dread?" 

And when given the choice in 2021, I'm going to choose BLISS.