With the holiday upon us, I’d like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. It’ll be a little quieter than usual at our house this year but we’ll all be together, and in light of the recent shooting in Newtown, Connecticut I’m aware of just how special that is. It reminds me to appreciate those I love and relish in the simple things in life. It’s a reminder, too, that the best gifts in life are rarely things.

The best writing gift I ever received came at a time of high emotion. I was thirty, an established broadcast journalist, but just beginning my writing career. I’d had a few articles published, but no books, despite my efforts. My grandmother was in the hospital. When I went to see her, she introduced me to the nurse as ‘my granddaughter who writes books.’ My grandmother died three days later. I consider that her last and possibly most important gift to me. The belief she had in my abilities (sometimes more than I had in myself) and her utter conviction that it was only a matter of time before I was published in book length fiction gave me the courage and push I needed to keep going. I dedicated my first book to her.

As the year draws to a close and we welcome 2013 may you be blessed with love, laughter and the presence of the people you hold dear. And may we all be blessed with the greatest gift of all: peace.

Note: Spoiler Alert 

One Saturday night a while back my family and I rented Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (In an eerie coincidence, we were ten minutes into the movie when an earthquake measuring 7.7 hit a few hours north of us. Luckily there was no damage and I didn’t find out until later about it or the tsunami advisory so my movie watching went on uninterrupted).

And I’m glad because this movie captivated me. Set in the near future, the premise is simple. An asteroid named ‘Matilda’ is on a collision course with Earth. In three weeks, the world will come to an absolute end. What will people do in the time they have left?

I love big question stuff. I also love black humor, a ticking clock, a dog (big thumbs up on that) and love. This movie had all of that. It wasn’t a romantic comedy, but it was both funny and it was romantic. The pairing of leads Steve Carell with Keira Knightley was admittedly odd. Some reviewers didn’t like it. I did.

They are neighbors who are thrown together after the countdown to Matilda begins. With transportation in chaos and their apartment building trashed by looters, they take off on a road trip. Carell wants to find a girl from his past and Knightley is anxious to reunite with her family. The relationship develops from there.

Admittedly, there were some things I didn’t love. A few issues were glossed over, and there were a few unanswered questions too. Though, come to think of it, there probably will be an unanswered question or two at the end of the world.

The thing is, though, when the end came in this movie and for these two characters, I was devastated. So much so that my jaw hit my chest and I turned to my family and said, “They die?”

The Martian laughed. “What did you expect?”
Teen Freud rolled his eyes. “Yeah, it’s not called Seeking a Friend for a Near But Averted Catastrophe.”

They were right. I knew that. I knew too that I hadn’t been misled by anything in the film. Not really. Oh, sure, there were those few unanswered questions and maybe a hint that life might go on, but realistically I’d gotten what I’d signed up for.

Except I’d done a total buy in. I’d been totally, 100% hooked by the characters. I was invested in their lives, their dreams, their love. When the end came I wanted them to live on.

And, really, isn’t that what we try for as writers? To hook the reader? To get them to do a total buy in? To root for our characters so completely that when the end comes they may not be left wanting more but at the very least they think there is more. They truly believe in their heart of hearts that the end of that particular story is the beginning of a new story for those characters. And that includes characters being hit full force by the asteroid Matilda.

 

This is the season of pumpkins, black cats, and superstitions. Maybe that’s why I’m thinking about writers and their rituals, superstitious or otherwise. We don’t all have rituals, but many of us do. And we’re in good company.

Apparently Charles Dickens had to arrange the ornaments on his desk in a certain way before he started writing. May Sarton cued up the 18th century music. Maya Angelou has used the same writing ritual for years: she gets up about five, drives to a hotel and is writing by 6:30 in the morning. Longhand. On yellow pads. Lying on the bed. Oh, and she asks staff to take everything off the walls so there’s just her, the Bible, Roget’s Thesaurus and some sherry. Isabelle Allende begins writing every new book on January 8th, a tradition that began in 1981 with a letter she wrote to her dying grandfather, one that sparked The House of Spirits.

Many writing rituals are more mundane. One author friend writes her first draft in long hand using a particular type of pen (she orders them in bulk). Another can’t write with shoes on her feet, only slippers. My ritual is an early morning work out, a quick check of email while I drink my first cup of coffee, and a glance at my ‘to do’ list. Then I’m ready to write. Oh, wait. I need a red pen handy (to cross items off said list) and a sweater hanging on the back of my chair to pull around my shoulders when a chill (or insecurity) hits. The latter ritual goes back years to a hand knit navy sweater given to me by my Aunt Edna. Having that sweater close was a reminder that someone had my back. It was a good feeling.

You might think I’m fussy or just plain weird, but there’s nothing weird or merely superstitious about rituals. Thanks to neuroscience, we now know rituals can increase confidence, reduce worry and make it easier to get things done.

Here’s how it works. When we repeat behaviors, the neurons in our brains communicate together, wire together, and activate each other. If we do things fairly often in a similar sequence, our brains get used to that order and become more efficient at the task.

“It’s like developing friendships,” says Dr. Brian Christie, Director of the Neuroscience Graduate Program at the University of Victoria in British Columbia. “At first, conversation is awkward and stilted but as you become more comfortable and closer better friends, those conversations flow more easily. It’s the same with neurons. The neurons that fire together, wire together.”

So if the neurons for writing are activated at the same time you follow a specific routine – whether that’s pouring your first coffee of the day, pulling on a familiar sweater, or rearranging the chotchkies on your desk like Dickens did – that means they’re primed and ready to go. And the more regularly they fire together, the bigger, stronger, and more powerful they become.

And I don’t know about you, but I can use all the help I can get.
So excuse me. I need to check my email, glance at my ‘to do’ list, and get to work.

I wasn’t that odd as a child, not really, although if you ask my father he’d probably disagree. I was highly sensitive to my surroundings (especially to the undercurrents of conversations and what wasn’t being said); I was prone to storytelling (others referred to this as exaggeration); and I had three special (imaginary-to-everyone-else) friends. I played with them, had conversations (and arguments) with them and I ate meals with them too. Sometimes, if my father was out, my mother would set three extra plates. I guess she knew I was a writer-in-the-making.

How do you know you’re a writer? You know you’re a writer when –

You had imaginary friends as a child only they were real to you.

You are prone to wild imaginings that can literally make your heart race.

Conflict makes you smile.

You Don’t Understand non readers.

You laugh out loud at conversations in your head.

Some of the letters on your keyboard are worn off.

You have pens in every room of your house, including the bathroom and beside your bed.

A song on the radio sparks a story idea.

You stare at random people and memorize their quirks.

You can predict the conflict or turning points in TV shows and movies, and your family has made you promise to keep quiet until it’s over.

You get excited by Scrivener.

Eavesdropping is second nature.

You love bookstores (but hate them if they don’t carry your books).

You live in a constant state of ‘what now?’ closely followed by ‘what if?’

Twist is not a cinnamon stick.

You have scribbled an idea, a word, or a piece of dialogue on a restaurant napkin, boarding pass, old envelope, school newsletter, or empty toilet roll.

You find those odd bits of paper – sometimes indecipherable – in pockets, wallets, purses, drawers, stuffed between the pages of a book, and you save them.

Pacing is a concept not an activity.

You found it easier to write when you first started.

You have missed a turn, an exit ramp or possibly a plane because you were so absorbed in your story.

You weren’t comfortable as a journalist because you always wanted to change the end of the story.

You will read anything.

The Muse is an intimate.

Character is not about your personal ethics.

A hero must be flawed. But sexy as hell.

You gather ideas, thoughts, bits of trivia and snatches of dialogue like black pants gather lint.

You visit a cemetery and take notes.

People you barely know ask you to read their book, their article, their life story. Or ask you to write it.

You have a weird combination of insecurity and confidence.

Finishing the scene is more important than answering the phone.

Proofreading is automatic.

Like a lot of people, I’m big on setting goals. I set weekly goals in the form of my ‘to do’ list and I set long term goals on my birthday which is near the end of August. I’m doing it again this year.

We live in a goal-oriented, results-celebrated society. If there was a Goals R Us outlet near you, would you stop by? I would. I’m always up for new goals. Goals are important. But so is moderation. In the past, my annual goal list was pages and pages – the War & Peace of goal setting. And I usually ended up frustrated because I never achieved half of what I wanted to.

So I took a course from author and psychologist Margie Lawson. Lawson believes in the SOAR process – setting obtainable and realistic goals. She has participants write down how long they think it’ll take to meet a given goal – the anticipated time –followed by the real time when the goal is achieved. People – and I was no exception – often underestimate how long it’ll take to complete a task or reach a goal. If they’re late or don’t get there, they beat themselves up. Focus, focus, focus, Lawson told us. Ignore distractions; choose to achieve your goals. And I have to admit, the process of anticipating the time it’ll take to achieve my goals has helped me cross the finish line on a lot of them.

But.

I started this blog a week ago. Anticipated time – about 40 minutes. Twenty minutes in, the phone rang, which I normally ignore (focus, focus). But it was my daughter and she never calls during writing hours unless it’s critical. Bracing myself, I picked up. She’d finished work early and wanted to chat before I left on a weekend away. She wanted to tell me about a disastrous first date in which the guy asked her to ‘bring snacks’ and then, after they met and ate the requested snacks, he walked her to a stylist so he could get his hair cut. Only he didn’t have his wallet and he needed a loan. (I am not making this up). After hearing more (and, unbelievably, there was more), I offered some motherly advice (run; followed by a pointed question – why didn’t you dump his ass and bad hair in front of that salon?) and an hour was gone. The blog was not written.

Margie Lawson would have been ashamed. A few days later, coming home from my weekend away, I got stuck on a mountain highway behind a police-led escort of a cycling team. A drive that should have taken forty-five minutes took almost two hours. It could have been worse – the Malahat (the name of the highway in question) is sometimes closed at length because of accidents. Everybody at home knows when someone is driving down island, they’re on Malahat time. Anything can happen; you learn to go with it.

It seems to me there is anticipated time, there is real time, and there is Malahat time. Malahat time messes with our goals. It is the unexpected. Sometimes it’s in our control (that ringing phone) but often it’s not (my trip home).

As a writer I need to turn in books and articles on deadline. I need to set goals. I need to consider anticipated time and real time, and sometimes I need to shut my ears to a ringing phone. But in the same way that story obstacles forge better characters, I’m starting to think that Malahat time flavors a richer life.

So this year, I’m not yearning for a Goals R Us or writing a goal list the length of War & Peace. I’m thinking realistically about what I can achieve in the next year. And I’m leaving space for some Malahat time. Because a richer life makes for better fiction. And isn’t that the only goal worth pursuing?

I’m holidaying at home this year. This is no hardship; I live on an island with beautiful beaches, world-renowned vineyards and award-winning restaurants. Staying home not only deepens my appreciation for the beauty in my own back yard, it gives me more time to read . . . and reading is its own kind of travel.

I started the summer with Paris In Love: A Memoir by Eloisa James. In 2009, James sold her house, took a sabbatical from her job as a Shakespeare professor and moved her family to Paris for a year. Her chronicles, told in Facebook-length short vignettes are true bites of Paris, without the calories. James, who is also a best-selling romance author, is sometimes witty and other times brilliantly descriptive as she details life with a dashing Italian husband, an overweight dog, and two children (11 and 15) who are initially less than enthused about the year away. Paris In Love had me nodding, laughing, and, on the last page, wishing there was more.

I was so dazzled by her writing that I picked up a James regency: When Beauty Tamed the Beast. Linnet Berry Thrynne is one of the most beautiful women ever to grace London’s ballrooms. Unfortunately, she’s been involved in something of a scandal and it’s believed she’s with child. She needs a husband. Enter Piers Yelverton, Earl of Marchant, a grumpy beast of a doctor (brilliant but lame; shades of the just ended TV series House) who lives in a castle in Wales and knows one thing for sure: he will never fall in love. He may, however, be in the market for a wife. These two leads had me laughing out loud with their verbal sparring; the supporting characters added great depth. No surprise that When Beauty Tamed the Beast is shortlisted for RWA’s 2012 prestigious Rita award.

Speaking of Rita Awards, another shortlisted book I just finished is Barbara Freethy’s paranormal romance At Hidden Falls. I’m a long-time Freethy fan; I’ve loved her work since Daniel’s Gift. The story opens when Isabella Silviera’s car goes off the cliff en route to Angel’s Bay and she is rescued by Nick Hartley, a man she knows is somehow connected to her recent unsettling dreams. Based on the gift of insight she inherited from her Mayan ancestors, Isabella knows someone in the small community is in trouble and needs her help. Is it her brother? Or is it Nick? At Hidden Falls has secrets, betrayal, intrigue, and true love. A great summer read.

An auto buy for me is Kristan Higgins and her latest contemporary romance Somebody to Love had me reading way past bedtime. After her father loses the family fortune in an insider-trading scheme, single mom Parker Welles is penniless. All she has left in the way of assets is a decrepit house – one she’s never seen – in Gideon’s Cove, Maine. She needs to fix and flip in order to provide for her son, Nicky. Enter James Cahill, her father’s right hand man, who shows up in Maine to help. Though he’s seriously gorgeous and knows his way around a toolbox, Parker is less than thrilled to see him. They have a history, and it’s not pretty. The love story builds beautifully with each character overcoming emotional obstacles standing in the way of a true relationship. The declaration of love was clever and the final kicker scene with Parker, James and little Nicky was both funny and poignant. Oh, and the scene with Parker and a mouse had me both laughing and squirming. Somebody to Love is another winner from Kristan Higgins.

A few weeks ago I wrote an article on confidence for a lifestyle magazine. I interviewed a number of people, one of whom was a friend who’d struggled with a lack of confidence as a child but had, through years of living and many small successes, come out of her shell and into herself. Her story wasn’t unique, but her eloquence provided me with some good quotes.

It’s what I didn’t include in the article, however, that haunted me for weeks afterwards. It’s a story she told me about her eighteen-year-old son, Ben.

I’ve known Ben since he was ten. He’s a deep thinker with a biting wit who is, like his mom used to be, a little low in confidence. He’s also an incredibly talented artist and writer. By the time he was in his early teens, Ben had filled a stack of notebooks with a lengthy and brilliantly illustrated fantasy novel that took him years to write. He didn’t talk about it much, but he had done it and his confidence was building.

Ben entered high school thinking about his future, considering what he’d major in at university. Knowing it would either be fine art or literature, he kept drawing and painting and writing.

Until Grade Eleven. That’s when Ben read Ulysses. And he hasn’t written a single word – other than texts to his buddies or required school work – since.

Ulysses, in case you missed it, is considered one of the greatest novels ever written. It’s number one on the Modern Library’s List of the 100 Best English Language Novels of the 20th century. Never mind that this James Joyce classic runs 265,000 words, was written in 1922, and is for me at least (and probably a few others) pretty much incomprehensible.

For some, it is the gold standard of literature. Given that, Ben decided to read it. It took him forever.

In fact, his mom said, he had trouble finishing it. In the end, he didn’t really like it. Nor did he understand it. But that appealed to his deep thinking nature because Ben found it meaningful. He took another look at his own fantasy novel and found it wanting. Comparisons were made, confidence was eroded. He could never write anything as good, he told his mother. Certainly not in this lifetime.

His mother said all the right things (and she’s not even a writer, she’s a dental hygienist). She pointed out that times change, tastes change, writing changes. She talked about hard-to-grasp literature versus engaging entertaining fiction. She mentioned Harry Potter and all the books Ben loved growing up. She reminded him of his innate talent, talked about how he had years to learn craft and hone that talent. She told him she believed in him.

The trouble is Ben stopped believing in himself.

We all make comparisons. Probably not with Ulysses but very likely with other writers. There is an upside to comparing if we’re studying craft and learning from it. I think that’s part of what Ben was trying to do. But there’s no place for comparing if it drags us down and makes us feel ‘less than.’ Because there’s always going to be someone who writes better or gets the award we covet or hits a list we desperately want to hit. They are not hard to find.

What is often harder to find is acceptance of and compassion for our own work, our own talent, our own process. And self-compassion, said one of the experts I interviewed for the article, is one of the cornerstones of confidence.

Ben was part of my son’s graduating class. In a few weeks, he’ll walk out of his high school forever. I’m going to wrap up a copy of ‘Sometimes the Magic Works – Lessons From a Writing Life’ by Terry Brooks. I’ll give it to him and suggest he might like to read some of Brooks’ fantasy novels too. They remind me of the kind of thing Ben wrote with such passion back in middle school.

And while Ben’s off somewhere reading, his mom and I have plans for his copy of Ulysses. Campfire anyone?

I live in the Northern Hemisphere. Not on an ice flow but fairly far north, well beyond what you’d call tropical.

So imagine my shock when I looked out my office window in the dead of winter and saw a koala perched on a branch of my gnarled apple tree.

Yes, I’d had my morning coffee and, no, it didn’t contain brandy. I saw a koala. At least until my brain slapped my imagination upside the head and reminded me it wasn’t possible; I was seeing things. Seeing things differently.

At least outside my window. Inside was a different story.

Some months prior to the marsupial sighting, I’d been working on a novel, one of the most challenging books I’ve written. This story required the weaving of two worlds. I had everything in place, or so I thought, but readers weren’t getting it. The protagonist was compelling; the writing and dialogue flowed; the goals, motivations and conflict were all spelled out. Editors and agents had said so. Yet they weren’t buying. Readers seemed fuzzy on the secondary world I’d so carefully woven through the pages. Maybe, someone suggested, you could take a specific pivotal event that happens later in the manuscript and use it as your opening. That, they said, would clear things up.

No. Not possible. While I wasn’t married to the opening I had, I did favor a certain order in the unfolding of events. There was a logic to it. Putting that pivotal event at the front of the book would seriously mess up the pacing and ruin the escalating tension.

When the Martian-I-married pointed out that I was, in fact, the author of this particular novel which meant I had complete control over the unfolding of events, the rising of said tension, etc. etc., I told him to (please) go into the basement and work on his car. Then I stuck the manuscript away for more aging while I finished something else.

As these things work – literally minutes before I saw the koala – I had pulled the manuscript and placed it on my desk. But while I had new perspective on the wildlife in my backyard, I was still seeing what I wanted to see in the WIP.

I spent the next few days revising around that troubling opening and maintaining my unarguable logic of why events needed to unfold the way they did. Curiously, the opening did not rewrite itself; the problem still remained. Funny how that works.

On Thursday I decided what the hell. I copied and pasted the pivotal event from the middle of the manuscript to the beginning. I wrote, and rewrote. I fiddled with the middle, writing and rewriting that too.

It did not work. It wrecked the flow in the middle; it raised too many questions at the beginning.

Feeling both smug and discouraged, I went to sign off for the day. And that’s when I saw it. Another koala. Only this one wasn’t in the apple tree, it was on the screen in front of me. I saw, quite suddenly and from a completely different perspective, what that reader had been going on about. I saw beyond the specific event of the pivotal scene to the elements she was after – the danger, the conflict, the setting. And – praise the writing Gods – I saw how to incorporate those elements into a new opening scene.

I saw differently. Obviously seeing things differently is a skill I need to feed. I just hope that koala sticks around.

Book revisions remind me a lot of home renovations. Case in point: the floors in my house.

Last spring, my husband and I decided, on something of a whim, to get our hardwood floors refinished. Our house is old and lovingly cared for. The floors, however, were old and hadn’t been loved in 24 years. Clearly I was in a whimsical decision-making mood at the time because, within days of that idea, I also pulled a dusty old manuscript out from under my bed and decided to revise it.

(Note: more than one whimsical decision in a week may lead to therapy)

When floors are refinished, everything must be off said floors. In the process of removing our kitchen appliances, the squirrel running our refrigerator died, as did the one running the dishwasher. A quick shopping trip revealed a dilemma: refrigerators had gotten considerably larger since the last one went into its alcove beside the cupboards. “We can get a much better fridge if we cut the cupboard down a little,” said the Martin (aka husband with a power tool obsession). Hearing only “much better fridge,” I agreed.

Two months later, when I blinked and looked around the kitchen, we had all new appliances, several smaller cupboards, as well as new lights, a new backsplash, new countertops, and a window seat we’d been talking about getting for fifteen years.

A window seat where I can recline with a glass of wine and read the manuscript I am still tweaking because, funny thing is, like refinishing floors, when you start moving things around in an old manuscript, you may as well get out the power tools because everything is up for grabs.

Here’s what my whimsical self learned:

1. Be realistic. This will be hard. Messy. You may cry. And kill people. To save your soul and the judicial system, with any luck these will be made up people only and not contractors or editors.

2. Keep an open mind. Things may not go according to plan. The book may, as Stephen King’s does in his first draft, ‘speak to you’ even as you’re getting ready to slash and burn. Listen. Serve the book (or the kitchen, as the case may be). Be ruthless.

3. Cut words, cut people, but don’t cut corners. Cutting corners and doing a half assed job may well lead to a half assed product.
Cut the swampy bits out of the book; buy granite for the kitchen. You know you want to. And it’ll be worth it in the end. But:

4. It will cost you. Time, tears, and more cold hard cash than you’d like. Whether it’s the revision or the reno, have your phone and favorite take out menus handy; bribe your kids to dial the number at the end of the day when you’re too cross-eyed to see.

5. Call in the experts: Peeps to read pages; contractors to give consultations. Serve wine. Or not. Unless it’s contractors in which case I happen to know beer or scotch at the pencil sharpening (but not the power tool starting) stage improves the bottom line. Either way, get feedback. Take what resonates; toss the rest.

6. Pretty pots and fancy phrases only go so far. Like a decent stove that fires on all cylinders, craft matters. Pay attention to the important stuff: character, conflict, story goal, structure. Nice cutlery doesn’t hurt either.

7. Remember the promise. When the dust settles and the power tools are unplugged, make sure you deliver that final product. Whether it’s cupcakes or chicken cordon bleu, edgy thriller or heart wrenching romance, give them what they came for. And leave them wanting more.

January 23, 2012 marks the start of the Chinese Year of the Dragon. In Chinese lore, the dragon is the ultimate symbol of success, prosperity, and good fortune. Dragon Years are supposed to usher in Great Things. (And any writer who doesn’t look forward to Great Things has either given up writing or is lying to themselves.)

This year it’s the water dragon. The water dragon last appeared in 1952, the year Queen Elizabeth II became Queen of England. That same year, the field of medicine saw its first successful separation of Siamese twins in Cleveland, Ohio; the polio vaccine was first tested; and the transistor radio was developed.

Along with being a year of great highs, significantly bleak things can happen in a Dragon Year too. A killer fog descended on London in 1952, leading to the invention of the word smog. And the United States introduced two highly destructive weapons – the B-52 bomber and the hydrogen bomb.

But as is often the case, it’s publishing and books I’m thinking about. Ballentine Books was founded in 1952, becoming one of the leading publishers of science fiction and fantasy. Its biggest rival, Ace Publishing, was founded that same year, as was St. Martin’s Press.

Agatha Christie’s Mousetrap opened in London in 1952, eventually setting the record for the longest, continually running production of a play in history (wouldn’t it be nice to have that publishing credit?)

As you’d expect, many books were published in 1952. E.B. White published Charlotte’s Web, one of my all-time favorite stories. Other classics that year included A Child’s Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas; East of Eden by John Steinbeck; and The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemmingway. Isaac Asimov published three books including Foundation and Empire. In terms of series, C.S. Lewis published the third in his Narnia series; Mary Norton the first in her The Borrowers series, and Carolyn Keene released her 29th Nancy Drew – The Mystery at the Ski Jump. Catherine Cookson published her heart wrenching The Fifteen Streets and Pearl S. Buck saw the release of her classic Hidden Flower. If non-fiction was your thing, Albert Einstein had The Principle of Relativity, and if you preferred short stories you could curl up with Daphne du Maurier’s collection Kiss Me Again, Stranger. (It included the short story The Birds later adapted for screen by Alfred Hitchcock.)

Two books published in 1952 would profoundly impact my life. One was Karen by Marie Killilea, a deeply moving true story about a girl with cerebral palsy. I read that book decades later, when I was twelve. Shortly after, I was asked to baby-sit a young child with cerebral palsy. Had I not read the book, I may not have had the courage to say yes. And looking after Marie brought me many gifts.

The other book was Sue Barton, Staff Nurse by Helen Dore Boylston. I soon devoured the entire series. For a while I toyed with the idea of being a nurse, but given my distaste for all things bloody (and thinking doctors had more fun anyway), I decided telling stories was my One True Love. Some years later, my daughter sourced a Sue Barton book on EBay and presented it to me for Christmas. It sits on my shelf, a physical reminder of the efforts of a Dragon Year and the dreams of a young girl.

Some say the dragon’s originality and imagination is the most impressive of his characteristics. He’s said to see new paths where others might see brick walls. Originality. Imagination. Opportunity. Three key words for this year. Key words I’m taking to heart.

Oh, and since the dragon is associated with spring, to make the most of a Dragon Year, we’re supposed to get started as early in spring as possible.

Ready, set, go!