My Name was Supposed to be Elizabeth Ann

So I’m trying to write the kind of book I love to read.

Diverse characters. Multiple POVs, multiple timelines, multiple worlds.

A bit historical, dystopian, and mystery, with a bit of myth and a few ghosts thrown in for good measure.

Go big or go home, right?

Hahahahaha!

I said I wanted the challenge, remember? I also said I wanted to have fun. Come December 31, I don’t want to look back on my year with regret. I don’t want to look back at my time and effort spent as wasted, nor tainted with shoulda-couldas. I want to be able to say, I gave it my best, and this is what I learned from trying. This is what I can take forward into 2026.

Did you know the second Friday of January is called Quitters’ Day?

Me neither, until recently. But apparently, that’s the day by which most people who make New Year’s resolutions quit on their resolutions. I’ve read various theories explaining why people quit, but the one that most resonates with me is that most people quit because they lack a plan to translate said resolution into action, even in the face of obstacles. Even in the face of their own (inevitable) self-sabotage. 

Trust me, I know all about self-sabotage. You do too, I bet.

Which is why I needed a plan.

Not a one-size-fits-you-all, but rather a one-size-fits-just-me. 

FUN FACT: when I shared my goal with you all last month, I had NO CLUE, no CLUE AT ALL about what I was going to do next. Only that, come January, Hubby would be away and I would have three relatively open and solitary weeks to make progress, my very own DIY, at home retreat.

I even, sort of, BSed the title of this post. I wrote it based on what I HOPED to have achieved by the first Saturday in February, NOT on what I had ALREADY ACCOMPLISHED or begun. 

See, I HATE to appear foolish and I HATE to disappoint. Myself. Others. The universe. 

Ugh. 

So I really try not to make promises I cannot keep.

Key word, TRY. I’m not perfect, no matter the sincerity of my intentions.

BUT–

If I open my mouth to do the thing, I’m really going to try to do the thing. 

Which, as it turned out, was step one of my plan, to USE WHAT I KNOW about my own strengths and weaknesses and build from there. 

Step two? GATHER MY RESOURCES. Chaos and clutter cannonball my focus, so between Christmas and New Year’s, I purged and reorganized my shelves and notebooks, my digital files and filing cabinets. I cleared my desk of all but basic writing tools, and I reread and organized everything I’d so far drafted for this project. Then, using my favorite purple Pentel, I listed everything I thought I still needed to do. 

NEWSFLASH: Actually writing the story (You know, choosing and arranging the necessary words, sentences and  paragraphs) occurred near the very bottom of my list, along with revising and asking pretty please–maybe–for beta readers. See I’m a plantser. I like order and schedules and plans, which is why I organized my writing space and resources. However, I don’t like things so tightly orchestrated there’s no room for flexibility or surprises. 

Because,

NEWSFLASH 2: Life is full of surprises and not always the good kind, so DON’T REINVENT THE WHEEL. 

Instead, put it in reverse. Over my three decades as an educator, I had the privilege of meeting and working with thousands of students with thousands of needs and thousands of skill sets, and what worked with my classes in 1991 had zero guarantee of working with those in ‘01 or ‘10 or ‘20. Regardless, my district and state expected students to know and be able to perform specific language proficiencies by June and/or mandated testing, so that’s where I began designing my curriculum and writing my lessons. Neither the goal nor the starting point could change, so I would plan my year backwards from June, establishing milestones and frameworks within each unit, scaffolding requisite skills along the way and adjusting as needed. One metaphorical eye on now, the other on June.

Why not take a similar approach toward meeting my December goal? Not only in its planning, but in its implementation? I could utilize whatever tools and methods that work best for me in whatever stage of the process I found myself. After all, differentiation isn’t only for the classroom. 

NEWSFLASH 3: People used to write books without Scrivener. People used to write books without computers or typewriters or word processors or voice recorders. They wrote by hand, masterpieces like Hamlet and Emma and The Awakening, and while I am neither bard nor technophobe, I think about their writers and I think, Well if they made it work so can I. I can at least…try. I DON’T HAVE TO FOLLOW THE TRENDS, I CAN MAKE MY OWN RULES.

Thus, my JaNoWriMo, very loosely based on the NaNoWriMo challenge wherein writers who are not me often devote November to drafting a 50,000 word novel. Pre-January, I had characters and a premise, a basic understanding of what I wanted their story to be about, but jumping headlong into writing would be as useful and fun to me as setting off to a foreign locale with neither provisions nor directions. 

Which is to say, not useful or fun at all. 

Instead, by January’s end, I wanted–for lack of a better phrase–a structural map of every major scene, and I wanted to be able to see how my various characters, worlds and timelines intersected and connected. Literally see the book’s structure, like an actual physical map, with every actor and action depicted so I could keep track of the patterns. Because–let’s be honest–I couldn’t keep track of its patterns.

So I revised my character descriptions and I rethought their influences on each other and I considered ways to impose order on my arguably-too-ambitious-for-a-novice novel.

Hahahahaha!

I said I wanted the challenge, remember? 

So I color-coded each character and drew six stacked timelines on 17 x 20 tablet paper, one for shared world events and one for each major character. Much like how a paper road map depicts an entire state on most of its surface and enlarges a city or several in its corners, I drew so I could see how each character’s part fit into the whole. I photographed each day’s work for backup, neatly recopied the finished product, and then pinned it to my bulletin board. 

Next, using the same pad, I drew a witch’s hat to represent the book’s structure, labelled the major beats’ locations, pencilled in events I’d already decided to include, and set about creating and placing those events I hadn’t yet determined. Short notes on the diagram, detailed notes on a notepad. All color-coded and all backed up digitally and/or photographically.

Mechanical pencil, actually. Because it glides on paper and doesn’t cramp my hand. Because it has a built-in eraser and is always sharp and ready to write. Pencils give me permission to make mistakes, permission to try something new. 

Tiny steps. Baby steps. ONE THING AT A TIME, ONE THING AFTER ANOTHER.

However, sometimes progress met resistance. 

I couldn’t even see the next step, let alone take it, and so sometimes I would lean back into my comfy chair by my library window and watch songbirds flit among the Bradford pear’s south-facing bare branches. I delighted in discovering so many species over-wintered in my corner of Pennsylvania. Nuthatches and Dark-eyed Juncos. House finches and Song sparrows among others. Once, during a late afternoon snowstorm, a female cardinal perched on an uppermost limb, dull reddish brown feathers puffed for warmth against the wind and Arctic chill. Back and forth she turned her head, opening her bright orange beak like a yawn as she studied our muffled neighborhood and I studied her until, several long minutes later, she flew off in the direction of my backyard feeder.

Sometimes, I meandered to the kitchen for tea and, while waiting for the kettle to boil, watched gray squirrels skitter along the neighbor’s fence and atop our shed’s roofline, jumping the foot or more to the wooden playset Hubby built when our adult children were babies, then down to the bird feeder. Once, I nearly spit out my tea laughing. An intrepid squirrel clutched the icy pole with its tail and stretched horizontally to the feeder, its belly facing me, its forepaws clutching the seed tray.  It grabbed and chewed, grabbed and chewed for several minutes, then–releasing its hold on the pole–clawed up the feeder before jumping across to the playset. 

Kudos, I saluted it, then returned to work.

See,  SOMETIMES RESISTANCE SPEAKS AS LOUDLY AS PROGRESS AND SOMETIMES IT WHISPERS, but you do have to listen to what it’s trying to tell you. You do have to pay attention, in order to navigate obstacles. In order to prevent self-sabotage. When my son was in college and wanted to come home for a weekend, I would leave work Friday afternoon and drive five hours round trip to fetch him, up the Northeast Extension, and across I-80 to campus. Except it was almost never five hours, because more than half the time an accident would close the southbound lanes, booting us off the highway and onto back windy roads. Waze didn’t exist. GPS rerouted us to the same blocked turnpike. Google maps only worked when cell service worked, which it frequently didn’t on said back windy roads. 

So how’d we get home? We could have just waited it out in stalled traffic. But when it’s cold and dark and you’re tired and hungry and have to pee and have no idea how long the wait or whether you even have enough gas to do so, you figure another way around. Unlike Hubby I have no natural sense of direction, but I do know how to read a map, and so I would unfold the paper map from my glovebox and tell my son which roads to look for as we detoured.

Likewise, we had to ANTICIPATE EACH TURN AFTER THE NEXT ONE, because sometimes they come up quick and you can’t U-turn if you speed past. Each time I wrote myself into a mental roadblock, I would in similar fashion consider how I’d arrived there. Which wrong plot turns had I taken and WHY were they wrong? How had they contributed to my understanding that something just wasn’t working? Sure, I was lost, but–much like I do while driving unfamiliar terrain–I focused on my destination, where I wanted to go not only with the story I’m trying to create but with the why I’m trying to create it. I would consider, What happens to my story if I head this way? What happens to ME, if I quit? 

I said I said I wanted the challenge, remember? I also said I wanted to have fun.

Guess what? I did. More than I’d anticipated, actually.

I played with my characters like I did my dolls when I was a kid. I figured out their hairstyles and clothes, their modulations and movements, who and what matters to them most, how they would react if I suggested they Do This instead of That. Apparently, Leah is a control freak and Cal keeps way too many secrets. Fetch always tells the truth, even when he lies, and Anna…. Well, let’s just say don’t underestimate my girl.

I’m also glad I didn’t underestimate myself. I’m glad I kept at it. I actually met my January goal on January 18, thirteen days earlier than expected. I know my story’s not perfect and I have A LOT more to do before asking anyone to take a read. 

IF I ever ask anyone to take a read. 

But that’s okay. I figured out how to get this far, I’ll figure out how to get further. I welcome the challenge and I’m going to keep having fun.

And I love it when a plan comes together ☺️

*****

What I’m reading now…

Brooklyn by Colm Toibin and Devotions: The Selected Poems by Mary Oliver

Also, four stories a month of The Best American Short Stories (2024). Eight down, twelve more to go!

A recent library haul…

Two books I’m really looking forward to reading when they’re released later this year…

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E Schwab and Katabasis by R.F. Kuang

Because I LOVED Schwab’s The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, likewise Babel and Yellowface by Kuang.

Last month, I challenged you to…

imagine it’s December 31, 2025 and you’re looking back on the accomplishment you’re most proud of, and then, tell me the story of how you got there.

So how’s it going? What steps have you taken thus far? Haven’t even started? No worries! Start today. Maybe some of my strategies may help. Maybe you need your own plan like I did. Either way, I hope you figure out a path that works and stick with it. 

Some stories that aren’t books…

During the pandemic, I started subscribing to CNN’s Good Things newsletter for a weekly pick-me-up of much needed good news. It’s since been renamed 5 Good Things mirroring its weekly good news podcast. 

And recently, a friend of mine recommended the Good News Network as a similar antidote. 

Need a respite from negativity and bad news like I do? You might want to check them out.  

Coming up on MY NAME WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ELIZABETH ANN…

Next up in March: Procrastination, Second Chances, and ‘The City and Its Uncertain Walls’

(and of course a reading and writing update 😉 )

*****

Thanks for reading! Thanks for sharing!