Dear Readers:

I suspect 2013 is going to be my lucky year.  Lots of changes since my last entry. We returned from a three-week vacation to Asia and Australia in mid-December and launched into holiday preparations with little time to do anything else until now. I was pleasantly surprised last November to be notified by an Associate Editor from The Sun Magazine that one of my pieces was being considered for publication in their January issue. Sure enough, there it is in print. I hope to post it on this site soon because all intellectual property rights revert to me now that it is published. And it will also be read during a January podcast presented by AIRSLA (Automated Internet Reading Service of Los Angeles). Wow, here comes some free publicity.

So it is time for New Year’s Resolutions and I have made some involving my writing:

• Write at least two hours per day (which shouldn’t be difficult because I have a plan to work on a rewrite of novel number one using the suggestions offered by an agent who read my entire manuscript).
• Read at least two hours per day (which shouldn’t be difficult because I found eight new books I had on my Santa wish list stuffed in my stocking).
• Organize my research and plug along on keeping my stories as accurate as wary publishers can handle (which I learned this year when a memoir-type short story I wrote reminiscing about an incident from my childhood was edited to remove any names that could be identified and targeted as possible liability law suits.)
• Bite the challenge bullet and enter several more stories in contests and voice my opinion in letters to the editor if I feel the need to disagree with a publication’s printed dogma.
• Post a blog update at least once every two weeks (as per advice I received when I attended the Women Write the West Conference from Stephanie Barko, Literary Publicist).

So that should fill up my time.  The plot thickens.