From the Editor: Approaching 2011

Issue 61

From the Editor:

Approaching 2011

By Lazette Gifford

 

Copyright © 2011, Lazette Gifford, All Rights Reserved 

 

This is the last piece to write for the current issue of Vision.  I kept hoping I would come up with something profound, interesting -- at least writing-related -- but at the moment (mid-afternoon on January 31, 2010) all I can come up with is am I done yet?

 

So maybe I should talk about deadlines and how, even with years of experience and the best intentions, it will often come down to the eleventh hour decisions and a rush of last minute work.  There comes a point where you have to get the work done and let go, deadline or not.  You have to accept that it may not be perfect because nothing ever is.  Like many people, I have edited and re-edited, fixed and slaved over a piece and sent it off . . . only to find a misspelled word in the very first line.  I think this is the work of some sort of writing gremlin, put in place to keep us all humble.  (This appears to work better with some writers than with others.)

 

Vision is as done as I can make it.  It's time to step away and -- yes -- look at writing and 2011.  With the start of the New Year comes a lot of decision making for me.  What am I going to try to focus on this year?  What do I want to do differently?  Should I -- as I keep meaning to -- take some time away from writing to do more with photography and computer-based art?  How hard is the marketing going to be this year?  Will the drastic changes in Vision -- and some serious one at Forward Motion as well -- mean I'll have less time to write than I already do?

 

Is having less time to write really going to hurt me?  Despite being incredibly busy this year, I still wrote over a million new words.

 

In the end, whatever changes I decide on, it will help to make another interesting writing year, because no matter what, it is the stories themselves that make the writing, not any change I approach to them.  I have some wonderful ideas I'm working on, too.  I can't wait to get to them.

 

Only hours to go now. 

 

I hope everyone has a happy New Year and writes with joy.