Move Along

Hi there, and welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas day, and I’m glad you came back over to read my final post of 2018. It’s been a fun month, hasn’t it?

All month long, I’ve been talking about a few things I want you all to keep in mind as we close out 2018 and usher in 2019, and today, I probably have the most important topic of all. True, this month has been full of things you probably already knew, things you might not have wanted to be told again, but we can always stand to be told at least one more time.

Especially when it’s something important.

#6: Time to move on

If there’s only one thing you focus on, as you glance back and forth between the year behind you and the year ahead, let it be this. It’s time to move on. It’s time to step forward, to walk straight into the future with your head held high.

Yeah, it’s hard to move on. Yeah, for some of us, 2018 was horrible. Yeah, for some of us, 2019 doesn’t look any better.

That doesn’t mean you can’t grow through it, learn from it, and move on.

In fact, that’s exactly what you should do.

It’s time to move on.

If you’re still one of those people who sees 2019 as nothing but a blank slate, a year in which you’ll accomplish far more than you accomplished in 2018, then it’s time to stop looking back at 2018. It’s time to look forward.

But if you’re like me, if you don’t think of time and years the same way everyone else seems to, then it’s time to buckle down, to stay strong, to keep moving. December gets busy. We all know that. January is usually just as hectic. So keep your head up and keep moving.

Keep calm and carry on, as they say.

The new year brings opportunity. So did the year you’re leaving. What are you going to do with it? Are you going to look at 2019’s opportunities and shrug, like you did with some of the ones in 2018? Or are you going to move on, to keep going, to keep pushing forward?

Well, that’s for you to decide.

Either way, it’s time to move on.

Whether from a year of glorious victory or a year of wretched failure, it’s time to move on. To move into the future. To look to the better that’s just over the horizon. Because whether you’re in a good place right now or not, there’s always something better, just over that hilltop.

All you have to do is get there. Move on. Keep moving. Don’t ever let the calendar get you down.

Thank you all, once again, for sticking with me this year! I’ll see you on the other side. (where, I should mention, I'll be posting in the RADblog for both January and February!)

[love]

{Rani Divine}

MC

Hi there, and welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m so glad you stopped by, because today, I want to wish you the very merriest of Christmases.

I know, I know, I’m early. But I’m going to be taking Christmas day to be with my family, and I have a very special topic I want to discuss in here before the new year hits, so I wanted to take this time to thank you, all of you, for joining in on the fun in Too Many Books to Count.

I don’t know a lot of you personally. I might not even know your real names. But I do know that you read my blog, that you come by twice a week to see what I’m chatting about, to learn and discover a little bit about writing and editing along the way. And I know that it’s been a lot of fun, this year. I’ve had a great time exploring the world of fiction with you.

So, from the depths of my heart, Merry Christmas.

I hope that these next few days fill your hearts with joy and love, and that you find yourself full of smiles on Christmas day.

I know for some of you, the holidays aren’t a time for joy—and for you, I wish the brightest of smiles and the heartiest of laughter. Even if you don’t feel like it. Even if you feel like you have nothing in the world to smile about. Crack a smile, force the laugh. It’ll feel good once you’ve done it (science proved that, a long time ago).

Even if you’re by yourself in a room, know that you’re never alone. Come on back to Too Many Books to Count. Read a series from a few years ago. Hang out with me. Drop some comments (if I see them on Christmas, I’ll hit reply).

Thank you, each and every one of you, for spending time with me this year.

Merry Christmas, my friends. Here’s to many more.

[love]

{Rani Divine}

Change the Same

Hi everyone, and welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m glad you stopped by. It’s been a hectic month, and I’m thankful you took a moment out of your schedule to hang out with me. I’d miss you, if you weren’t around.

All month long, I’ve been talking about some things that I want you to keep in mind, as we close out the year. And, true, a lot of these things are things you already know—but they’re also things we all need to hear, once in a while. We need to hear them, and we need to take them to heart. As writers, sometimes we need to hear it from another writer. And that’s what I’m here for. :)

#5: There won’t be as much change in 2019 as you might think

I don’t know why, at the end of every year, we get our hopes up that next year will be so much better, so much different, from the year we’re leaving. The odds are, not that much will change. In fact, the odds are that next year will be pretty darn similar to this year. Sure, some years will be better than others, some will be worse, but in the grand scheme of things, in the day-to-day, everything generally stays about the same.

Keep that in mind, as we enter 2019. It’ll help take the pressure off.

You, my dear writer, are always growing. I don’t mean to say that you’re not, that your craft isn’t constantly getting better or that you don’t need to work on it because nothing’s going to change. No, dear writer, I’m telling you that if you think of every year as just another year, another opportunity, without putting an extreme high-beam on it, your accomplishments will be all the greater (and it’ll be easier to look back on every year with joy).

2019 can’t control what becomes of it. But you can. 2019 isn’t an entity, but a year. It doesn’t get to decide what happens and what doesn’t happen. You do that. But if you put too much pressure on, if you try to tell 2019 that it has to be the best year ever, you’re setting yourself up to be disappointed when December rolls around again.

Before you go getting the wrong idea again, I’m also not telling you that you shouldn’t aim high every year. You should. In fact, you should aim higher in 2019 than you aimed in 2018—but only if you actually reached all your goals in 2018. If you didn’t, then shoot for the same mark. Once you get it, shoot higher.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t try to make 2019 amazing, that you should just think of it as another year and nothing more. No, what I’m saying is that you shouldn’t be thinking in terms of the calendar days at all.

Have a goal in mind? Set yourself a realistic timeframe to get it done. Don’t focus on it fitting into 2019. Focus on getting it done to the best of your ability, in the time that you have.

2019 is just 365 days. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s just a group of days on a calendar, and it shouldn’t be how you look at the things you want to accomplish. Sure, you’ll do some amazing things in 2019. I know you will. I will, too. And we’ll look back on 2019 and be thrilled at the things we did. But we’ll also remember 2019 as the year we started something. The year we finished Goal A and moved on to Goal B, the one that would take us five and three quarters of a year to finish.

Doesn’t matter what year it is. You probably won’t be able to complete all your goals, if you don’t set them realistically. That's what happens every year, or didn't you notice?

So take the pressure off. 2019 is just another year, another set of calendar days in which to work toward completing our goals.

And it won’t be all that different from this year, because nothing ever changes that far. We’ll still be writers, we’ll still be writing, editing, publishing, and repeating. Only we’ll be getting better at it along the way—no matter what day or year it is.

[love]

{Rani Divine}