Intentions for 2005

I long ago gave up the pretense of creating New Year's Resolutions. Like most people, the diets I began on January 1st usually limped along for a couple of weeks before the deeply-ingrained patterns spawned by my sugar addiction, and my masterful excuses for not exercising, reasserted themselves and took me down. Did you notice that I worded that last sentence to give the impression that there is something to BLAME for my lack of self-control? That a finger could rightfully be pointed? That it had nothing to do with my own moment-to-moment choices? I may be as clever as the next woman at describing my victimhood, but I actually do know better. I get that I'm the chooser. The hand lifting the brownie to my lips is definitely attached to the rest of me. The eyeballs that display a laser-like ability to seek out New York Super Fudge Chunk ice cream, no matter how frosted over the glass case in the grocery store might be, are truly mine. And I hear that my hands and eyes are connected to my brain in some mysterious way. One little aside, while I'm thinking of it: did you know that fat creates estrogen? Or as a very young, very skinny physician's assistant told me at my last gyn checkup when we were discussing my progress through the Mystical Land of Menopause, "It's a good thing you have some extra fat. That way your body will continue to manufacture estrogen." Well, there you have it. The much-anticipated Silver Lining of Fat. Also, if anyone would've told me that if I count the years I was pre-menopausal, then throw in the peri-menopausal years, then tack on the big enchilada itself, that I'd be in some form of psychic meno-trauma for 15 years, I'd have jumped off of something. I guess it's the same theory as already-mothers never telling unsuspecting future-mothers what it's REALLY like to go through childbirth.

Anyway, the intentions for 2005 I'm talking about in this post are my writing intentions. My main project, The Vampire Shrink, a 100,000-word paranormal w/romance elements and humor will either be requested by the publishing house that already has 3 chapters/synopsis, or by another house high on my list of desirable places for my book to be born to the world. And, if the agent who has the 3 chapters/synopsis isn't interested at this time, I'll roll up my sleeves, do more research, and find more appropriate candidates. My short story, "A Legend in Her Own Mind," about a self-absorbed female vampire who has a Brief Encounter of the Hunky Kind, will either be picked up by the anthology I wrote it for, or another of the many places I'm just starting to explore. I'm going to write a short story (paranormal) to target a house that puts out ebooks and short stories. Then, I'm going to write yet another short story (I didn't know I liked writing short stories, but turns out that I gain great satisfaction from actually finishing something without torturing myself for months first!) for a romance contest. This will be my first attempt at real, undiluted, one heroine/one hero, happy ending romance. I'm looking forward to it.