Happy Creative 2018!

Happy 2018, everyone! It's great to be starting a new page, a fresh chapter, and even an entire book if that's what we want to do. The possibilities are endless.

2017 was a good year for me; I accomplished many of my goals, added some new ones, and discovered what it is I truly love to do: write and draw, of course!

Some of the year's highlights included:

• Travel to southern California for business, and travel to Corpus Christi, TX for sheer fun. Both trips were welcome get-aways, but later in the year when hurricane damage struck the Texas coast and California suffered such terrible fire damage, I could only think myself fortunate to have missed the devastation. I can't imagine what the residents of those states have had to endure these last months and I hope the recovery goes well for them.
• On a more positive note, I wrote a collection of poems based on my trip to Taiwan several years ago. This is the first time I've written enough poems centered on a single theme and narrative to make a good-sized chapbook.
• Once I was finished with the text, I then finished a series of mixed-media paintings I had started about 18 months ago, also based on scenes from Taiwan. Using watercolor, sumi ink, colored pencil, and oil pastel I tried to evoke many of the emotions, sights, and sounds I experienced in that country. My plan is to use the pictures as illustrations to the poetry when I'm ready to publish it all in book form.
• My novel, The Abyssal Plain, went to several agents, and is currently being read in full by request right now! I had very much hoped to publish it this year, but having a positive response is a close second.
•  I completed the first round of edits for my next novel, Ghazal, getting it ready for a second draft I'll begin in February. (I like to let drafts sit and settle for a bit before tearing them apart again.)
• July saw me attending Camp NaNoWriMo--a side journey I never meant to take, but there's nothing like going off the beaten trail. Rather than working on a novel, I used my time and word count to write short stories, a format that fit the challenge well.
• Overseas visitors! Friends from New Zealand made the summer special. It was so much fun to show off Albuquerque and see my town from a fresh perspective.
• I created a new art journal, concentrating on Asian themes for future writing and painting. Similar to a journal-style "mood board," I filled the pages with my favorite colors and images for both inspiration and reference.
• Reading. What would I do without books? The best I found in 2017 were Elizabeth Kostova's The Swan Thieves and a biography of Madame Chiang Kai-Shek by Laura Tyson Li.
• Ink became a real mainstay for me, and I used it for much more than journaling. Ink pens, ink brushes, sumi and bamboo sticks . . . Line and watercolor wash became my full-time sketching technique, something I'll be continuing throughout this new year.
• Last, and perhaps my favorite: I blocked out a first draft and dummy for a children's picture book, The White Pony. Learning to draw horses hasn't been easy, but I'm getting there!

So with all that out of the way, my goals for 2018 are plain and simple, no frills attached:

1. Publish The Abyssal Plain. (I hope, I hope.)
2. Submit Ghazal to agents and editors before the end of the year.
3. Turn The White Pony into a ready-to-submit manuscript package including illustrations.

Accomplishing these three milestones will require a number of mini-goals, i.e., draw every day, market every day, edit and write every day. I'll be busy, but it's doing what I signed up for and I'm grateful for another year to keep working on my dreams. In the meantime, wishing you a world of joy, creativity, and achievable goals of your own. Happy New Year--may the celebrations last until December!