in with the new

It really is a total coincidence that my new website launched as the ball dropped, but it works for me. Metaphorically, metaphysically and a whole bunch of other meta ways. I've been writing, oh, 42 years or so if you count my kindergarten scribblings, so if you go by the whole Deuteronomy thing, that's six big fat slate-clearing beginnings as a writer. My last website was conceived in 2005, so there you have it. I release thee. Done.

Last New Year's I had all this anxiety and do-or-die energy. I began the year with a pretty dramatic cleanse (no coffee or booze or sugar for a month!). Shortly thereafter, I wangled myself a terrific agent, I finished (or so I thought) my young adult book, I also finished another draft of my other novel. I taught classes, took on new work and clients, erased nearly 20K of debt, turned 50, and managed the usual family crises and hectic soccer mom schedule. I could not have accomplished any of those things without the help of my fantastic husband, my brilliant business partner, and, of course, my terrific, star-studded writing group.

2011was full of aggressive energy. We (Kirk, Carson and I) barely stopped moving the whole year. We capped it off with a rip-roaring party last night where we also managed to raise some money for the social service agency where my daughter works. Kirk and I were clearing up the beer bottles and plastic champagne flutes and piles of poker chips at 2:00 a.m., both feeling pretty self-satisfied. And exhausted.

So. 2012? I'm not going to move quite as fast. I'm gong to slow down and hunker in, and finish stuff. Make the things I've started as beautiful as I can. Fix what's broken. Nurture and nest and celebrate. Take lots of "next right steps." I hope. Today marks my transition from partner in a thriving communications business, back to independent contractor and sole proprietor of my little word-smithing enterprise.

Tomorrow my writing group will be over, and we'll do our annual spewing of intentions, which is something I personally cherish, but many of my colleagues do not. Show of hands: writing resolutions/intentions, good? Bad? Indifferent?