New Leaf

I am turning one.

So I’ve been working on my mindset (what with it being a good servant but a terrible master) about exercise, fitness, and my body.  And through my research and much Deep Thinking I have come to several conclusions:

• Good habits are easier to start than bad ones are to break, and since I’ve been unsuccessful at breaking my One Bad Habit, I’m going to reach for the former and hope that it, by extension, will help with the latter. 
• It’s easier to stick to a routine of exercise if you write down your progress.  Here’s the tracker I’m using.
• Doing what I can do is better than doing nothing.  This should be self-evident, but as a perfectionist, I am loathe to reach for “good enough.”  I have finally (!) come to grips with this fact.  It’s only taken 38 years, 7 months, and 4 days.
• One MUST prepare oneself mentally for the journey before one begins.  By that, I mean: Get a plan.  Figure out how you’ll do it, when you’ll do it, and what you’ll do.  Decide how you’ll overcome your obstacles before they arise.
• Don’t push.  If it hurts later you’ll be put off.  Start slowly for once.  Ease into the journey.  Praise the effort. 

Also?  The most important, hugest thing that I learned?  Dear Friends, I will tell you now:

• I like my body, just as it is.  

I’m just not going to pick at myself anymore.  First of all, I don’t need that negative voice in my head.  And second of all, that negative voice never knew what it was talking about. 

That, for me, has been the very best part of growing up.

***

Anyone’s who’s regularly read my blog knows that I strive each day to reflect on a few things I’m grateful for.  I cannot encourage everyone to do this enough.  Only by focusing on our blessings do we truly enjoy life.  I think daily of George Bernard Shaw’s “splendid torch.”  Carry your own, my friends, and let it “burn as brightly as possible.”  But in doing so, you must remember to look at the torch, to notice its fire. 

So by way of example, I thought I’d include bits of my own gratitude list here in the hopes it might inspire someone to keep their own.  Your list needn’t be anything too long or too specific, nor should you chastise yourself for not including things you feel you SHOULD be grateful for.  Of course we’re all grateful for our lives, our health if we have it, our family, our home, etc.  This is more of a way of observing the large and the small things that make your life whole, special, and ordinary.

Today’s Gratitude List:

• Self-acceptance, hard won – and the determination to keep it
• My pond
• My son’s freckles – the only other one in our family to have them besides me and my father
• The smell of the German’s skin, his hands on my body, his lips on my neck
• My camera, there to catch the moments
• Caprese salad and homemade bruschetta, candles by the pond, the waterfalls, the soft summer night air, good music, good company
• Having a home large enough to welcome my brother when his life fell apart

THIS JUST IN: Baby Tracy Returns to the Blogosphere

Srsly.  Dudes.  You like me.  You REALLY like me.

And I couldn’t feel more humbled by that.  You have no idea.

So where’ve I been, you might be wondering?  Well.  Baby Tracy got a job.  Like, a real one, with bennies and a paycheck and everything.  I mean, don’t get me wrong.  Writing books is fun, see.  And I love it a lot.  (When I say I love it a lot, what I mean is that I have an aching in my heart where my full-time writing gig used to live and it’s a soul-sucking, soul-crushing suck-fest each morning when I arise and realize that it’s over.)  But writing books is (I’m whispering here – this is a secret) not very profitable.

But don’t tell anyone, k?  ‘Cause Publishers don’t like writers to know that.  They want us to think that if we work really, really hard and write a really good book (ones that get nominated for awards like RT’s Best British Isles Set Romance of 2008) and spend part of our advance on things like promotion and websites and web ads, we have a chance at success.  They want us to think that, because it makes them happy when we’re working like busy little bees.  What they DON’T want us to know is that they will slash our print runs by less than half of half, thereby eliminating ANY chance of success.  They don’t want us to know this because what’s going on in NYC is Very Important Publishing Business, and writers are far too silly to understand how those things work. 

Don’t get the impression that I’m disillusioned about how the gig operates.  Because why would I be?  It’s not as if a publisher contacted me, offered me a book deal, let me spend an entire year pulling my hair out whilst agonizing over every bloody word, and then pulled the flim-flam of a print run without disclosing that their terms had changed. 

And you know what the worst part of all of it is?  It’s that if this hypothetical scenerio were to play out, it’d be unprofessional for me to speak about it.

I, my friends, am a consummate professional.  So I’m working the day gig, yeah, but I’m still busy beeing it in the Word Factory (though production is sadly down), because while writing books is a bit like shoveling elephant shit in the circus, it’s near impossible to quit Show Business.

So what else is new with me, you might all be wondering?  Well – life’s pretty good.  My Gratitude List is long, rife with frogs in the pond:

An incredible husband who is made entirely of Awesome:

And a kid who I adore (and who also won the silver Presidential Academic Achievement Award):

And over all, job and everything considered, I am a very happy, very grateful Baby Tracy:

Oh, and guess what else?  One of my short stories is being published in a literary journal.  I’ll post more about that when I know more details.  And also?  My latest novel, STEALING MIDNIGHT, will be on sale (all three copies) in October. 

I’m back.  Thanks for still checking in on me.