This weekend is a gift. Today I’m thinking of the coming year. Last year I dubbed 2017 “The Year of Getting It Done.” The year didn’t work out quite like I thought it would. So, much for my 2017 New Year’s resolutions {wry smile}…

I’m thinking of going a different direction in 2018, especially since 2017 veered in the opposite direction from my predication. Last week, A friend and I talked about what we want in the New Year. In a moment I knew what I wanted. I said it the minute it came to my mind. I want to learn to live in the present, not in the future. I spent the rest of Christmas week preparing for the most blessed Christmas day I’ve had in years. I lived Christmas day in the present.

When I returned to work I spent my evenings daydreaming about the future and trying to understand how to get there. As is my habit, I was living in the future AGAIN! I want to dive into what I want most and that is to write. I want the future now! I’m not sure if I can do the living in the present tense thing. I’m get so distracted by the sparkly future tense. But that is not where I am today.

As I write this, I discovered when I live in the present, I still can taste what I want in real time. This past year with all its emergencies, disruptions, and the NaNoWriMo challenge, I found the responsibilities still got done. Instead of taking up prime time they get shoved in little pockets of time and handled. That shift in perspective gives me a lot of time in the present to go get the dreams. Imagine actually doing what a writer does. It will be a part time gig that allows me to take this dream hold it and live it for say twenty hours a week.

For the last six years, I have been writing as a hobby. What did I get done? I established my blog, finished one novel “Bloodlines,” and have started three more: “Sidelines, Targeted, and Prankster” (All working titles here). Wow! I finished a novel. Me, little ol’ Milly actually finished it. Okay, it took six years to get from first draft to the third draft. But, three copies are sitting on my dining room table waiting for me to take the next steps. I’m terrified. The only person who has read my book is my dear patient husband. He’s actually read it twice and gave me edits on the third draft.

What does this make me? It makes me a writer. What does a writer need? Readers! So in the present right now I am a writer terrified of readers. It’s so ironic it makes me laugh out loud. I haven’t walked this path from the present into the future in a while. The daily grind has pushed me to my favorite form of escapism, living in my daydreams and stories in my head.

Today want to move forward. The next steps are learning how this whole writing business works, getting an editor, and possibly an agent. I have so many doubts. I am terrified to have someone else, someone professional read my work. Can I take the criticisms? What about the rejections? I’m not sure I’m up for that much reality.

As I wrote my last blog post I decided something. I have to take the chance. I have to take the steps to be a Smashing Success or a Fabulous Failure.

Leaning in close because, here’s a secret…{whisper} in either case, I’ll pick myself up, dust myself off, toast the success or effort, and do it all again.

Why? Because the adventure is fun!  Here’s to the present tense (as I raise my coffee in a toast). It’s all about the living in real time.

Happy 2018 adventures Ya’ll!

Milly