What Kind of Tracks Have You Left?

We will be known forever by the tracks we leave.--Dakota

I saw this quote n Ladybug Whispers on Facebook several years ago. (See, going on FB is not wasted time!) There are a lot of these quotes and poster pictures, and most are worthwhile, but now and then one comes along that impresses me and makes me ponder awhile. This is one of them.

Stop and think about the tracks you have left as you moved through your life. This includes both your personal life and your writing world. We are leaving tracks in both places.

Are your tracks deep and worth something, or did you skim across the sand and leave only a slight imprint? Are you at a point in your life where you can make a change if you feel you need to? Isn't the beginning of a new year the perfect time to give it a go?

When I look back over the years, I know that I could have done several things differently, but that's finished now. It's the path ahead where I can make some changes in both my personal and my writing life.

How about you? Today's a brand new day, also the final day of 2020. Let's use it in the best way we can. Even better, consider what kind of tracks you want to leave in 2021. January 1st is the day to get started. 

Wishing everyone a Happy New Year. May your muse shower you with inspiration!

NOTE:  Next post will be Monday, January 4, 2021

Happy New Year

Musing on The Old Year and The New

We are about to enter a new month, new year, and a new decade. That's a lot of 'new' for us to handle. The newspapers and tv news reporters are all looking back at the events of 2019. I prefer to look forward to what might be happening in this next year. 

Not that looking back doesn't have its merits. It does. For one thing, it helps us see where our country or our career or family interactions were positive and places that we might have done better. That goes for our writing world, too.  If looking back helps us do better in the coming year, then I'm all for it. But if retreading the past is a downer, then let's forget it. 

I do like to look over my Submissions record for this last twelve months. How many times did I submit? How many subs were actually accepted? What are my feelings about those two things? Will checking this record help me in 2020? I think it can if I pay close attention to my questions posed to myself. 

We'll leave the actual goal-setting for next year until January is actually upon us, which is only hours away.

If you're a list maker, try the following. For your title, use My Writing Life in 2019. On one side put Things I Wanted To Do and Things I Did either next to it or underneath. I find that lists are helpful when making an assessment. You can see at a glance where you need to improve and where you should feel satisfied.

Give some thought to what you hope to do differently in your writing life in 2020. Does that number make you sit up and take notice? It does for me. The 1920s were a time of peace, prosperity, prohibition, flapper fashions and more. Look at the list of well-known authors from that era

• Ezra Pound.
• Gertrude Stein.
• Ernest Hemingway.
• Langston Hughes.
• Edith Wharton.
• T.S. Eliot.
• F. Scott Fitzgerald

How many of them are you familiar with, have read their works? Their style of writing might be quite different from the current literature we read, but they will always be known for good writing, for having made a mark on the literary world, and for entertaining untold thousands. Who will be our top writers of the 2020s? An unknown at this point. A few familiar names perhaps and some we've yet to hear at this point.

I have already set one goal for 2020, and it's a big one. I'll need to focus and push myself to accomplish my objective. I'll also need to continue on my everyday writing journey, as well. 

I wish the best of all things in your writing world during this brand new year coming up, oh so soon. I hope the rejections will be fewer and hurt less, that your acceptance rate will climb, and you find that you are still passionate about writing.