Happy New Year!!!

Thus it begins! It's a brand new year, and that means what...? New plans, new goals, new ways of looking at old things. Also new fears, new problems, new forms to fill out.

I refuse to make New Year's resolutions. That's just setting myself up for failure. I live my life by the compass, not the clock. If I know where I want to go, I course-correct every time I get lost. Sometimes, I get way lost, and a huge change is required. Sometimes, I'm only a couple of degrees off. If I don't fix things now, they will only get worse.

Last year, I decided to lose and keep off ten percent of my body weight and I've achieved that. This year, I'm going for another ten percent. That should get me to a pretty good place. I'm not a fashion model, but I LOVE clothing. There's nothing like a new outfit to make me feel like a new girl. So maybe paying attention to what I eat is a good directional trend. Plus, I hear it has health benefits. Losing ten percent already dropped my A1C by an entire point. Maybe working a little harder will do something about my cholesterol.

Apropos of that, I tend to cocoon for extra long periods, making it harder to launch myself outside. I imagine there's a diagnosis or at least a word, but I don't want to label the problem. So maybe finding things to do in cool new clothes (or even the cool old ones) feels like an appropriate step to take.

Most important, I feel like working again. The desire to write has come and gone a lot over the last eighteen years and there aren't very many writers I know who are finding financial success. Forget success, I'd accept minimum wage. Even those who have had success in the past are finding it tough to keep up their enthusiasm in the face of the monetary return for hours and hours of work. Creators gotta create. It's nice when we can earn some money, but that's not the entire reason we work.

One of the things readers can do is buy from authors directly if they can. Often, authors deeply discount the work for readers who show any desire to do that. I give a standard fifty percent off ebooks from my store, except on huge bundles which are already deeply discounted. If you can't do that, the next best thing is a subscription service like Kindle Unlimited or Kobo's version of the same thing. At least with those an author is paid a small amount per page read. There are other deals, like BookBub or Chirp for audiobooks. You only have to look to find discount books where authors get paid.

I wish you all the happiest 2025. I wish you joy, health, wealth, productivity, and creativity--or the wisdom to course correct until you get to those things. I wish everyone peace in their hearts and peace on earth.

Regards,

Z.A. Maxfield