Pet Safety Over the Holidays and All Year Long

I recently wrote a blog post for Run Those Dogs about potential holiday hazards for your pets. I know I get so busy trying to get it all done over the holidays that its pretty easy for me to be absent-minded, in a hurry, and occasionally a little careless.

This blog meant more to me than the average because while I was writing about the dangers of candles, I was reminded of a family just a few blocks away who lost their home and their friend two years ago to an unattended candle. The friend had been staying in their spare bedroom and the fire began with a single candle. A young man lost his life, an older teen was severely burned and broke a bone jumping from a second story window, and two other family members were displaced and had to move out of our wonderful neighborhood, switching schools to move to a crowded house with relatives.

Ownership of the house was complicated and so it still sits down the street, boarded up and blackened by the fire, the prayer flags faded white and waving in the wind. It waits, silently, to be torn down when bureaucracy allows. Someday a crisp, new house will fill the void. But their lives will never be the same.

So please, please, keep you and your pets safe this holiday season and all year long.

Channeling a Ghost for the Holidays

Momix at Mount Baker Theater.

I am honored to be a part of Mount Baker Theatre’s (MBT’s) brilliance. Since the fall, they have allowed their resident ghost Judy to channel her thoughts about the beautiful, historic theater through me.

This week Judy is helping Pacific Northwesterners cross a few things off their holiday shopping list by giving the gift of a MBT experience through my WhatcomTalk.com blog post.

I hope you’ll appreciate how much fun it is to be Judy. I’ve always wanted a writing gig like Dear Sugar where I can give advice and thoughts anonymously. For now, this is the next best thing.

Year End Inventory

One of my writing mentors, Christina Katz suggests cataloging your accomplishments before setting goals for the new year. Give this a try before setting your New Year’s Resolutions.

Here are my writing-related accomplishments during 2010:

• I published 10 articles in local and regional publications
• I have 12 articles already written that can be circulated as reprints and published elsewhere
• I took two classes: Writing & Publihing the Short Stuff and the Dream Team
• I completed edits for a personal essay, Finding My Way, that will be published in the anthology, Bless Your Heart, due out in Fall 2011
• I wrote ~70,000 words of my memoir, and polished about 10,000 more
• I blogged at least 3 times a month right here on my own blog all year long and converted my old blog to WordPress (highly recommend it)
• I joined my county writers and publishers group, Whatcom Writers and Publishers, and attended two meetings
• I joined a critique group and connected with at least 4 other writers in my town. Some of them are in my blog roll to the right.
• I opened a separate bank account to hold earnings from writing
• I started telling people that I’m a writer when they ask what I do
• I narrowed down the kind of writing I’d like to do in the future to two niches: assisted reproduction and environmental conservation & toxicology

I’m sure there are a couple that I missed but that feels like a lot of success for one year.

Looking ahead, I came up with these goals for 2011. Please let me know if you would like to help me acheive any of these aspirations.

• Publish more than ten articles this year, hopefully at least one will be in a national publication
• Finish the draft of my memoir and revise it until I am satisfied, and then submit my proposal to at least 10 more agents
• Earn some money writing this year
• Increase my blog readership, and explore blogging strategies, such as guest blogging
• Consider taking a personal essay class and/or a class on platform development
• Start publishing small stuff in my newer niche: environmental conservation & toxicology
• Attend two conferences this year, Pacific Northwest Writers Association meeting and Chuckanut Writer’s Conference
• Meet and get to know the owners of my local book store, Chuck and Dee Robinson at Village Books
• Publish a personal essay or short story in an anthology—I’ll check out Chicken Soup for the Soul, Cup of Comfort through Adams Media, and Seal Press

I hope that your year has been as productive and rewarding as mine and that you will achieve any goal you attack in 2011.

Happy Holidays!

Lorraine Wilde