Vision: A Resource for Writers
Lazette Gifford, Editor
Vision@sff.net

A Note from Zette

love writing.

The entire year (and, yes, I do write every single day) is filled with new adventures and new characters...and new problems.  There are always challenges in writing, like how to shore up that plot hole you missed that the Deathstar could get lost in, or trying to turn a whiny little bimbo into someone you don't want to smack in the back of the head every time you have to write her scenes.  Or the problems of maintaining a sense of humor for the funny books, and loosing it when you really really want to do something serious.

Remembering to write full sentences is nice, too (see sentence above).  But every day for more than a decade, I have sat down and faced these problems, as well as a plethora of their little cousins, come to plague me.  I make it through, and find myself on New Year's Eve tidying up the last of my year's work and preparing for the next year.

At the end of the year I always make certain that all my writing projects are completed before the end of December 31st.  New Year's day is a clean slate for me.  In that moment after midnight I have the possibility of doing anything.  All the plots, characters and words in the world are waiting for me to just start typing.

This isn't so much about setting goals, as making certain I don't get bogged down and complacent in my work.  Every year I have a definite break point to look forward to -- that moment in time when all the possibilities for new material are free to leap up and down until one of them gets my full attention.

It usually doesn't take one of them long to get my fingers moving.  I love writing.  I hope that you find half as much joy in it as I do, and that your year is filled with the same writing fun that I know I will have.

Good luck.  Happy 2003.

Now go write something.

    Lazette Gifford