Remember that New Year's Resolution you made back in January? Hmm. Well, it's been nearly five months since then, so I hope you're well on your way to accomplishing that resolution. If you haven't made any progress, fear not! Who needs a new year to start something new? Why not make a resolution at the beginning of a new season&$8212or refresh that January 1st resolution that you haven't really gotten around to doing? I've been telling myself for months now (sadly, for more than just five months) that I would get "serious" about my writing. And by getting serious, I meant not just staring at that unfinished short story on my laptop in between episodes of The Bachelor. Last week a friend of mine told me that she is going back to school for her MFA (graduate degree) in Writing—something she's been meaning to do for years. It inspired me to sign up for a writing workshop as soon as I can so I can start classes this summer. The warmer weather has me dreaming about taking my laptop to a café with outdoor seating, or sitting in a park with a notebook and a Virginia Woolf novel by my side for inspiration (or, for distraction.) But if my track record for doing any type of exercise that doesn't require a group setting and an instructor yelling at me to work harder has told me anything, it's that I am not good at self-motivating. Signing up for a writing class will be the perfect thing to make me commit to working on my writing in a serious way. And now that I've put it in writing, and made you HarperTeen FanLit folks read it, gosh darnit, I'm going to stick to this decision.
Take this lovely season of sunnier and longer days to make a resolution, big or small. And if you make that resolution and then later slack off, don't worry. I'll bug you about it in the fall.
What's your resolution of the season?
Alexis Barad,
Editor, HarperCollins Publishers
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