Jeanette Watts's Blog

*The following article is a "reprint" from The Book Cave. If you aren't familiar with The Book Cave, you might want to go look them up! You'll like them. Trust me.

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Do you make New Year’s Resolutions? I used to try that, but I kind of gave up. Too easy to make and break promises to myself, so why do that to myself? But this year, I thought I would make a resolution to make a New Year’s Resolution. To be fair, though, it really should be two resolutions: one as a reader, and one as a writer.

But now I am having trouble figuring out which resolution to go with. I’ve created a sort of wish list. Some of them seem too short to qualify as a resolution, others seem much too long. And the whole thing looks to me like a To Do List for 2023…

Next year, I resolve…

As a writer, to
1. Research and write the book set in 1850s Illinois
2. Research and write the sequel to #1
3. Research and write the third book, so now it’s a trilogy
4. Get better at using social media to promote the books I already have
5. Learn how to do a better book launch
6. Launch books #1, 2 and 3
7. Get on my Reddit chat rooms more often
8. Add an episode to my new YouTube Channel once a week
9. Start a podcast
10. Create One Sheets for the books I already have
11. Get those One Sheets sent out to bookstores and libraries
12. Ask my friends to go to their libraries to request my books and audiobooks
13. Write the book proposal for the non fiction book series I started writing during Covid
14. Get back to the research for writing book #3 of the two historical fiction books I already have
15. Convince my girlfriend to do the artwork for the children’s book I wrote for her to illustrate
16. Get back to editing the historical fiction book that I wrote 8 years ago and set aside because it just wasn’t “ripe” yet
17. Find the money to turn more of my books into audiobooks
18. Sew a new Regency dress for Jane Austen events
19. Finish writing the non fiction book series I started writing during Covid
20. Re-release the historical fiction trilogy (once it is a trilogy) with all-new book covers
21. Go to writers’ workshops
22. Write more essays for Book Cave
23. Get more exercise, sitting at the computer working all the time isn’t healthy

As a reader, to
1. Finish all three of the half-read books hiding in various parts of my house
2. Re-read the Jane Austen books I didn’t re-read in 2022
3. Read something that has nothing to do with the research reading for my writing projects
4. Read all the books in the pile for the research for my writing projects
5. Read something in a genre that I’ve never read before
6. Try to buy no more new books than will fit on the To Be Read shelf
7. Read everything currently on the To Be Read shelf so I can buy more books
8. Join more book clubs
9. Find book clubs that might be reading the books on my To Be Read shelf
10. Find the box with all the books of the authors I met at the last book festival, and put all their books on the To Be Read shelf
11. Listen to more audiobooks
12. Learn that I don’t HAVE to finish a book when I don’t like it
13. Every time I read a book, get online and write a review for it when I finish
14. Remember to get on Goodreads more often to post what I’m currently reading
15. Find at least ONE book that I admit I’m never going to read again and donate it to the library’s used book store
16. Put a book on my nightstand so when I can’t sleep, I can just read without getting out of bed
17. Buy those David McCullough books I didn’t know he’d written, put them on the floor in front of the To Be Read Shelf because there’s no more room to put the books on the shelf
18. Remember to fill the water bottle before getting on the exercise bike to read, it’s annoying to have to stop mid-chapter to go get water
19. Stop trying to cook and read at the same time. It never goes well
20. Remember there are things called e-readers, I can have books on my phone for when it’s inconvenient to be traveling with a full suitcase and backpack with no room for books


Ah. Yes, I think I see why I generally don’t make New Year’s Resolutions. This seems like kind of a lot. Wish me luck.

My newest book, "My Dearest Miss Fairfax," has just been released this week as an audiobook. My wonderful vocal talent, Stevie Zimmerman, was a guest on a JASNA Zoom meeting, and I instantly loved her voice, and was thrilled to be able to engage her talents.

When you are the author and have to "proof-listen" to your book multiple times, you would think that the process would get old. But it doesn't, and it has nothing to do with vanity.

Well, maybe a little vanity. There were a couple of times I actually did say, "Wow, I wrote that?"

When you read a book, there is a pleasure in cuddling up on the couch with a cup of tea, under a good reading lamp, feeling the paper in your hands as you turn the pages, while your eyes take in each word and your mind leaves your body for foreign places and times.

When you listen to a book, it's like being a child again. There is a warm pleasure in being read to. On road trips, my husband and I would take turns driving and reading out loud. It wasn't just a way to make the hours pass by pleasantly. It was also quality time together. The driver received the gift of being read to.

Many people listen to audiobooks while driving or working, but it's also a pleasure to be able to close your eyes and just listen. It's that childhood thing again. You don't even need the lights on. You are in a dark, warm, safe place where you are completely immersed in the speaker's voice while the story takes you to bright, cold, dangerous places.

The downside of an audiobook instead of someone next to you, reading, is that it's a lot harder to stop at any point in the narrative to talk about it. Ask questions. Discuss the beauty of a well-written phrase. Speculate about what might happen next with another person who might have an opinion on the topic. You aren't SHARING the story. You are the recipient.

Which can be enough.

I'm sorry to have been AWOL for so long… I have just finished moving…for the 5th time in 5 years.

It's all my husband's fault. It's a horrible time to be a doctor. Every employer allows their doctors to see four patients per hour. That's 5 minutes before your appointment to look at your chart, 5 minutes with you, and 5 minutes to write about what he or she talked to you about.

So if you've noticed the quality of your health care declining, that's why… it's horrible. And, as a doctor, it's equally horrible. My husband AND his partners all quit together from a hospital in Cincinnati to protest their horrid illegal and immoral practices. At least it got their attention.

Unfortunately, the NEXT hospital thought paperwork is more important than patient care. So we moved again, to a hospital that does not allow my ADHD, people-loving husband ANY assistants to help him get paperwork done AND actually treat people for their ailments….

Well, you get the idea. My life has been a lot of cardboard boxes for too many years. Which makes it hard to write books OR stay on top of things like author profiles.

So, I'm going on strike! Since I just got 5 years of constant packing and unpacking and settling in and getting the garden just right - in time to put the house on the market - I want 5 years with NO cardboard, and the time to write more books, and talk to readers!

So, please, if you have any questions about my books, or about what it's like to work in health care these days, or about moving, or about how to make friends in new places, please ask! I want to feel like a writer again, not like a moving company...

This weekend I was at a friend's wedding. The bride was beautiful, everyone cried, there were lots of toasts, the and played, we all danced. It's how weddings are supposed to be.

Just before dinner, the floor was occupied by the requisite horde of dancing children. The youngest ones happy jumped around, the older ones were obviously mimicking what they've seen older dancers do. One of them tried to dip, and then flip, one of the smaller girls.

Eventually I just couldn't resist the urge any more. I got up and joined them. The oldest boy had partnered up with one of the oldest two girls, leaving the other oldest girl without a partner. So I asked her to dance with me.

At first, I'd surprised her, and she ran away. But a couple minutes later, after I'd sat down, she came and found me and asked me to dance with her. The song that was playing was a cha-cha, so we did a simple basic cha-cha.

That child asked me to dance with her over and over that night. I taught her how to swing dance, too, but the cha-cha was her favorite. She taught the other kids how to do it. I think she taught her mother how to do it.

When her parents were leaving, she made a point of coming over to say goodbye to me. I hugged her, and told her to keep dancing. As she ran away, and waved to me one last time from the doorway, I realized that I changed her life that night. She just discovered that she can dance.

It made me realize that this is a simple rule for living that I should always follow. Always dance with little girls - and little boys - at weddings. Weddings have a potent sort of magic about them. The children should get their share of the magic.

Hello!

Because I had a couple of spare minutes to myself, I thought, of course, I must use them to embark upon a new venture that is going to require a lot of time to maintain. That's how these things go.

I am 49 years old, and I feel like my brain has gone into hyperdrive. I've always been a hyper person involved in a lot of things. In my 20s I would work three jobs while at the same time I was in three different dance performance companies. Belly dance, international folk dance, and Scandinavian dance.

In my 30s I started my current belly dance troupe, and a cancan troupe. And I taught college kids how to dance, both at a local college and at a private location. And I took a star role as Grace O'Malley, the Irish Pirate Queen at the local Renaissance Festival. And I started writing a book. Historic fiction. It would take 10 years to write, because to do the research I'd have to drive back home to Pittsburgh.

In my 40s, I finished and published that book, wrote a sequel, wrote a dance textbook on waltzing, wrote a couple of screenplays and registered them with the DGA. I expanded the Cancan troupe, got a webpage for it, kept the belly dancers busy, directed the entertainment for a wild west show, started a performance branch of the Vintage ballroom group, started a club that dresses up in Victorian garb once a month and goes bowling, or ice skating, or to the opera. I've got a production company and shot the pilot for a TV show about dancing in America. I've got a huge costume closet of Renaissance costumes that I've made for myself and my husband. And there are at least four books all banging at my brain demanding to be written.

I have to wonder if this is normal. Do all women go through this sort of hyper-productivity just before menopause or something? And when does it stop? Because I'm getting tired, and I really shouldn't go so many months between times when I pull out the vacuum cleaner and wash the kitchen floor.Jeanette Watts