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Happy New Year!

Long time no hear from, right? The only excuse I can give is it's been a hectic and tiring first trimester here in Abu Dhabi. But it's over. Done. Khalas ("finished" in Arabic). Thank God! The 2nd trimester has begun. Prayerfully, it won't be as hectic and tiring. Only time will tell. I do plan on catching up on everything I've gotten behind on, including blogging.

So, welcome back my loves! I'm excited seeing what this year will bring me. :D

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I welcome 2013 with open arms and submission. 

Do you ever sit down to plan and organize your work week but find that you enjoy the organizing more than the doing? That's me in a nutshell. It's taken a decade to realize this, but I'm grateful that I have! And this is why 2013 is going to be different!

First my health. Last year was all about my mental health and figuring out my identity. This year it's about my physical health...and that includes stress levels. 

I'm a highly active person, not in the sports or adventurous aspects, but I'm always moving, thinking, and analyzing. Can you relate?

To bring the stress down, I reorganized my studio into "sections". I had this before, but not so broken down. When we move I will break it down even further. I have four sections: Office, Create, Process, and Craft.

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New Year's Eve fireworks, 2012; photo by Matthew Cheney

I have a small contribution in the grand collage that is the Strange Horizons reviewers' "2012 in Review". Well worth taking a look at for the huge, wonderful variety of writers' interests and enthusiasms.

Happy new year!

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How can you resolve to change in 2013? With a community. The Mayo Clinic Scientific Press suite of publications is now available on Oxford Medicine Online, and to highlight some of the great resources, we’ve excerpted Prathibha Varkey, MD, MPH, MHPE’s Mayo Clinic Preventive Medicine and Public Health Board Review below.

Community and population health can be enhanced by recognizing the different levels of influence, namely intrapersonal, interpersonal, and organizational influences. More recently, attention is being paid to the importance of interpersonal influences through the study of social networks. Smoking cessation rates of individuals increase as more contacts in their social network quit smoking, and individuals gain weight as more contacts in their social network gain weight. Another example of social influence is an after-school program for teenagers that may not change attitudes but may reduce the opportunity to engage in risky behaviors. Organizational support for behavior change can be in the form of higher taxes on tobacco or alcohol, building recreational centers to enhance physical activity, cleaning up the environment (in one study, neighborhood deterioration was a better predictor of sexually transmitted disease than low education attainment), and using or regulating message delivery by the media.

Bringing about change at the population level may follow the principles of diffusion of innovation, as described by Everett Rogers. In this model, the social system comprises five adopter categories: (1) innovators, (2) early adopters, (3) early majority, (4) late majority, and (5) laggards. Innovators are important for change because they get the process started, but they are not very influential because too much uncertainty about the changed behavior still exists when they adopt the change. The early adopters are key to diffusing an innovation; this group tends to include the opinion leaders, and others usually solicit their advice about new innovations. This model of diffusion of innovation predicts whether innovations and change will be successful on a large scale.

How rapidly an innovation will be diffused depends on the characteristics of the innovation, how it is communicated, and the social system. The characteristics of innovation that determine its speed of adoption include its perceived relative advantage over current practice, compatibility with current practices and needs of the adopters, ease of use (simple vs complex), “trialability” (testable on a small scale), and observability (visibility of results).

The principles of this model can be useful for predicting behavior change or diffusion of best practices at the community or population level. For example, screening mammography has been widely adopted by physicians because it is perceived to detect early stage breast cancer, the test is easy for physicians to order, patient compliance is not burdensome, and results are visible in a short time. In contrast, smoking cessation counseling has been slower to diffuse because the results are not as visible (most people will not quit when advised to do so), the intervention is more complex than just ordering a test, and physician practices are not geared toward counseling.

• Intrapersonal, interpersonal, and organizational influences affect community and population health.
• Health changes at the population level may propagate in a manner predicted by the principles of diffusion of innovation.

 

A comprehensive and concise review of relevant preventive medicine and public health topics, the Mayo Clinic Preventive Medicine and Public Health Board Review is an ideal study guide for residents preparing to take the examination of the American Board of Preventive Medicine for the first time, as well as for physicians preparing for recertification. Its emphasis on evidence-based information and recommendations makes Mayo Clinic Preventive Medicine and Public Health Board Review a credible, practical resource that can be used in clinical, public health, and academic settings

The Mayo Clinic Scientific Press suite of publications is now available on Oxford Medicine Online. With full-text titles from Mayo Clinic clinicians and a bank of 3,000 multiple-choice questions, Mayo Clinic Toolkit provides a single location for residents, fellows, and practicing clinicians to undertake the self-testing necessary to prepare for, and pass, the Boards and remain up-to-date. Oxford Medicine Online is an interconnected collection of over 250 online medical resources which cover every stage in a medical career, for medical students and junior doctors, to resources for senior doctors and consultants. Oxford Medicine Online has relaunched with a brand new look and feel and enhanced functionality. Our aim is to ensure that the site continues to deliver the highest quality Oxford content whilst meeting the requirements of the busy student, doctor, or health professional working in a digital world.

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I hope you had fun.  (Apologies to JL.)  This is the time when we make grand promises for the New Year, such as:
I WILL lose weight.  (We forget about the "Gain it Back" part.)
I will review a book every single day and two on holidays. (hahahahahaha)
I will get organized... OR
I will learn to "let go". There are so many ways to interpret THAT resolution.

So, here are my resolutions.
I will quit groups that don't work for me.
I will pare down my FB friends to people I actually know and with whom I share fond memories.
I will read.
I will write.
I will review books.
I will make things.

I recently read Renegade Magic by Stephanie Burgis, the follow-up to Kat, Incorrigible.  I so adored Kat, Incorrigible.  It was one of my top five books of 2011.  And Renegade Magic does not disappoint. 

The trouble begins at Kat's oldest sister's wedding.  An enraged woman demands that the wedding be stopped because her son was enchanted!!!  Oh, no!  But her son is not getting married to Elissa.  He is merely standing up for the groom.  He is very much in love with Kat's middle sister, Angeline.  To whom he IS engaged.  But he can't be any more unless he wants to forfeit all his money until the ripe old age of 30.  And soooooo.....

Kat's stepmama has a plan to find a suitable fiance for her magically endowed step-daughter.  She will take the family to Bath where all the most eligible bachelors hang out.

Throw in the wild and magical qualities of the waters at Bath, and Kat's sudden loss of Magical Power due to the evil machinations of some of the Guardians in charge of said power.  (Read the first book.  This part IS a little confusing without the background.  But persevere.  All will out.)  Oh, and Kat's hapless brother Charles who has never met a bet he wouldn't take.  And Papa's penchant for staying out of the picture and never seeming to notice.  AND Angeline's headstrong character.

 Yep, add it all together and you have a Regency Fantasy Quasi-Romance for middle schoolers that will get them all ready - and even eager - for Jane Austen.  Kat is awesome.  I can't wait for Book 3!

BUT!  We can all read the first three chapters of Book 3 on Stephanie Burgis' website.  And Burgis has posted a FREE Kat short story.  Check it out. 

2013 is looking brighter every minute!

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It’s that time again: time to set resolutions and goals for ourselves as we enter the New Year. In this excerpt from Pursuing the Good Life, the late Christopher Peterson puts the spotlight on Benjamin Franklin, encouraging us to take the statesman a little more seriously… not for his political or scientific achievements, but for the way he set and cultivated his personal goals. Peterson shows that whether our resolutions are set in the beginning of January or halfway through the year, Franklin’s approach is one that we can all take some notes from.

Net worth to the world is usually determined by what remains after your bad habits are subtracted from your good ones. —Benjamin Franklin

I am writing this reflection on the last day of the year. Have you made any New Year’s resolutions? I just read an article on the most typical resolutions made by adults in the United States, and I was struck by how many of them embody the strengths of character that have been the subject of my research: spending more time with friends and family (love), saying no to cigarettes and alcohol (self-regulation), getting organized (prudence), learning something new (love of learning), helping others (kindness), getting fi t and losing weight (perseverance), and so on. Another common resolution is climbing out of debt, which in today’s world probably requires creativity coupled with good judgment.

If you want to make your resolutions happen, I suggest one more: taking Benjamin Franklin seriously.

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) is of course widely acclaimed as a statesman and scientist, but he may also deserve credit as America’s fi rst positive psychologist. Not only did he enumerate 13 praiseworthy character strengths (virtues), but he also took on the challenge of cultivating each of them, using himself as a research subject (Franklin, 1791/1962).

Franklin characterized each of the virtues of interest to him in terms of what he called their precepts . In modern psychological language, these precepts were behavioral markers of the virtue in question. For example, the precepts for industry were “lose no time; be always employ’d in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions” and for temperance were “eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation” (p. 67).

From my perspective, too many of Franklin’s precepts are phrased in terms of what a person should not do, refl ecting his concern with what contemporary virtue ethicists call corrective virtues , those that protect against human inclinations to act in bad ways. But good character is not simply the absence of bad character. Just because people refrain from mean-spirited actions does not make them kind, any more than being free from anxiety or depression necessarily makes people happy.

Nonetheless, the value of his precepts is that they are behavioral, observable, and countable. The goals they represent are hard and specifi c, which modern psychologists know are more effective in motivating change than the vague “do your best” (DYB) goals that many of us have.

Franklin’s own program of character cultivation was prescient. He recognized that exhortation would not suffi ce to change anyone, including himself, which is a point still not fully grasped by some proponents of today’s character education. Merely hanging a character-relevant poster on a classroom wall (or for that matter, the Ten Commandments) will not lead to change.

I spent my elementary school years staring daily at the periodic table of elements, and that did not make me into a chemist or even into a passable student of chemistry. What is needed is a concrete strategy of changing behavior. Franklin believed, as do I, that most people want to be good and decent. The problem is that we may not know how to do it. One does not tell a depressed patient simply to cheer up or a person prone to procrastination to just do it. If they knew how to be cheerful or how to get things done, then they would do so. What is more helpful is to tell them how to do these things. The same point applies to the cultivation of strengths of character.

Franklin also recognized that it would be too daunting to attempt to strengthen all virtues at the same time, so he prioritized them and tackled them in order. He further observed that the strengthening of one virtue might help with the subsequent cultivation of other virtues. For example, Franklin reasoned that the virtue of moderation should facilitate the virtue of silence, given that the latter requires the skills involved in the former.

Anticipating the modern behavior change strategy of “objectively” monitoring progress, Franklin made a book, with one page for each of the virtues he wished to strengthen. He organized each page by the day of the week. At the end of each day, he would think back over his actions and make “a black mark” if he had failed in following the precept. Again, I gently criticize Franklin for emphasizing his transgressions rather than his positive accomplishments, but that followed from the way he defined the precepts for each virtue.

He resolved to address one virtue per week, in the order he had prioritized, so that in 13 weeks he would have addressed all of them in succession. Then he would do it again, and in a year he would have completed four courses. Again, this is very modern, because Franklin anticipated the need for the maintenance of change.

His goal was to have a clean book, and to help him along the way, he included in his log relevant maxims and prayers, much as people today use Post-Its on their refrigerator to keep their goals front and center. For example, my own refrigerator door has a Post-It asking “Are you really that hungry?”

Franklin judged his program a success, in that he accorded himself fewer black marks as time passed. Still, some virtues were harder for him to strengthen than others. In particular, the strength of order gave him great trouble, as he was wont to scatter about his things and could typically rely on his good memory to know where things were amidst chaos. (Does this sound familiar to any of you readers?) In any event, he decided he was incorrigible with respect to this virtue and decided to accept the fault as part of who he was. From a positive psychology perspective, this is okay. No one can have it all, although to Franklin’s credit, he tried to change before he accepted the less than desirable conclusion.

Franklin did fret that his “success” with respect to some of the virtues refl ected changes in the appearance of the character strength rather than in its reality, but from my vantage point, this is a diffi cult distinction to maintain if we regard character strengths as habits. “Fake it until you can make it” is one of the slogans of Alcoholics Anonymous, and it means that if we behave in a sober way, no matter how deliberate or stilted our initial attempts, then eventually we will be sober. We are what we do.

Appreciate that Franklin did all of this when he was 79 years of age!

In Pursuing the Good Life, one of the founders of positive psychology, Christopher Peterson, offers one hundred bite-sized reflections exploring the many sides of this exciting new field. With the humor, warmth, and wisdom that has made him an award-winning teacher, Peterson takes readers on a lively tour of the sunny side of the psychological street. Christopher Peterson was Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan. One of the world’s most highly cited research psychologists and a founder of the field of positive psychology, Peterson was best-known for his studies of optimism and character strengths and their relationship to psychological and physical well-being. He was a frequent blogger for Psychology Today, where many of these short essays, including this one, first appeared.

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By Patricia Prijatel

A little evergreen tree has died alongside our road and, as we walked by it yesterday, my husband wondered why. All the other trees around it are healthy and it did not look like it had been hit by lightning or damaged by wind or attacked by bugs. The tree is about six feet tall, so it lived several years. We are in the Rocky Mountains and this little guy took root on its own, growing precariously in that place by the road.

The trees all around it are scrub oak, so maybe the soil was not right for an evergreen. Maybe it just grew in the wrong place, in soil that could not sustain it. Still, there are evergreens nearby that soar to the sky, so maybe this little tree was just too weak to begin with.

Could we have done something to save it? If we were in the city, would we have babied it and maybe kept it alive? Or would it have died sooner there?

These are the same questions we ponder about why some people get sick, why one disease affects one person more than others, why people who live healthy lives still can’t beat some illnesses, yet people with deplorable habits keep going and going.

It’s the old nature versus nurture argument. Bad genes or bad environment? Or both?

I am sort of over being angry at people who have dodged major illnesses — largely because there aren’t that many of them. Seems like most people I know have something to contend with — debilitating arthritis, diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer’s somewhere in their network of family and friends. But when I first got cancer I did look around at people who obviously were not living as healthy as I was and wondered: why me and not them? And then I realized that I had no idea what they were dealing with and I should just stop being so angry and judgmental and get over myself. It was not their fault I got sick.

Still, you have to wonder about this poker game we all play with our health. Some seem to be dealt a good hand to begin with, some make the best of a poor hand, some try but can’t make a straight out of a pair of twos, and some look at their cards and just fold.

I have one friend who never exercises and has a diet full of fat, yet she is in her mid-80s, hale, hearty, and youthful-looking. Another smoked all his life, drank, and never exercised, yet he is pushing 80 and has nothing seriously wrong physically, although I do think he looks back at his life with serious regret. But the big C didn’t get him, nor did any major illness. I wouldn’t swap places with him, though, even if I knew my cancer would return.

I also know a wide variety of cancer patients who approach the disease like the individuals they are — fighters who refuse to let the disease get the upper hand; questioners who search for their own information rather than listening to the docs; accommodators who go along with whatever the doctor says; worriers who can’t get beyond the fact that they might die. Most of us are a mix of these traits, fighting one day, living in worry the next. But we are all built differently, both physically and mentally, so we all react to our disease differently. Nobody is right, nobody is wrong. We’re all just us, being our own little trees fighting our own little battles.

We cannot escape our genes — they make us prone to certain diseases, give us the strength to fight others, and offer a blueprint for either a long or a short life. Still, we can change some of that; the science of epigenetics demonstrates that lifestyle and environmental factors can influence our genetic makeup so that, by improving things such as diet and physical activity and by avoiding unhealthy environmental pollutants including stress, bad air, and chemicals, we can eventually build a healthier DNA.

I was born into a history of cancer. My grandmother and both of my parents had forms of cancer, although none of them had breast cancer. I was the pioneer there. But both parents lived into their 80s and remained in their home until they died, surrounded by their family. So, I might have a tendency toward cancer, but perhaps my genes also mean I will hang around for a couple more decades. And my particular mix of nature and nurture has given me an ability to love, to laugh, to process health information in a way that might make me proactive, and to keep going, assuming all will be well, at least at some level.

Maybe I won’t end up as one of the stronger trees in the forest; maybe I will be the gnarled, crooked one. Maybe disease might slow me, but I feel I am rooted deeply in decent soil — family, friends, community — so I am going to push on, grow how I can, and, in the process, help shade and nurture the other trees around me.

Patricia Prijatel is author of Surviving Triple-Negative Breast Cancer, published by Oxford University Press. She is the E.T. Meredith Distinguished Professor Emerita of Journalism at Drake University. She will do a webcast with the Triple Negative Breast Cancer Foundation on 16 October 2012. Read her previous blog posts on the OUPblog or read her own blog“Positives About Negative.”

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Here's to more laughter in 2013.

This is a tune called the Laughing Rag by Roy Smeck from the 1920s. Buster Keaton would have certainly known this one and probably could have played it better than I can. Anyway, here's a version recorded during the packing and moving from my old studio. I'm using my 1930 Reed/Regal ukulele purchased from Antebellum Instruments.

Happy New Year, everyone!

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I feel a need for new, so I found a nice new sweater and a cute new bauble for my desk. I added a few more new books to yesterdays post and cleaned up the author links on the blog,. I mopped floors and wash windows. The laundry is finishing now. I’m trying not to take old mess into a new year!

I’m worried more about Hilary Clinton than I am that cliff. I’ve had too many close friends with cancer scares this year to know what really matters. I think I could somehow segue into a comment about health care in this country, but I won’t. Suffice to say that’s the cliff that concerns me.

My traditions are changing. I used to have brunch with friends on New Years Eve, get a massage and mani/pedi and then pick up some delicious carry out for dinner. I’m doing brunch and a movie on New Years this year, God willin’ and the predicted snow don’t rise too high. I’m still not making resolutions but I have decided to start carrying re-usable totes to the grocery so that I can stop fussing when the baggers put 2-3 items in each of to plastic bags they pack. Making the bags uses more petroleum than cars!! I can’t blame the baggers when I can be proactive and just carry totes with me!

I hate to admit I’m ready to go back to work, but I somewhat am because when the library opens, so does the fitness center next door and I’m ready to workout! Nope, I don’t want to carry it into the new year.

And, I’ve found my word for 2013:  COURAGE

Happy New Year! Have a Joy filled 2013!

Filed under: Me Being Me Tagged: new year

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I’ve written here before that I prefer setting goals to making resolutions, because they feel more positive and attainable, less like resolving not to do something and more like committing to a new behavior or action.  This year, I’m choosing a new word – ‘intention.’  I like this word even better than goal, because it feels more proactive – a plan, rather than a wish or a dream.  The power of words!

Here on the cusp of 2013, I have a number of intentions for the year with respect to my family, my community, and my health and well-being. The following are my intentions with respect to my work as an author, editor and educator:

1)  To write and deliver at least one new picture book in The Very Fairy Princess series with my Mom.

2)  To create a how-to-write-for-children book based on my Just Write for Kids home study course.

3)  To further develop and launch the Just Write for Kids middle grade writing course, which has been long in the making.

4)  To recommit to regular weekly installments of this blog.

5)  To enhance and enrich the Children’s Book Hub membership site with new opportunities, connections and resources for children’s books authors and illustrators.

6)  To launch the new Children’s Book Fellows certificate program for Stony Brook Southampton’s MFA in Creative Writing and Literature, as well as to further develop and enrich the Southampton Children’s Literature Conference there, for which I serve as Director.

7) To further develop and strengthen my own writing in the continued pursuit of my master’s degree.

8)  To seek out new opportunities for enrichment through joint ventures with esteemed industry colleagues… stay tuned for more news on this in the not too distant future.

What are your writing intentions for 2013?  By sharing them here, you make a powerful statement to yourself and the universe that will greatly increase the chances of realizing those intentions in the days and weeks ahead.

Happy New Year to all!

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Are you eager to embrace your goals in 2013? Many people around you might be talking about their desires to get closer to fulfilling certain accomplishments. What about you? What will you plan on changing this year? How do you want to make 2013 better than 2012? Think about it. Close your eyes and picture yourself graduating from college, starting a new job or making that special dream come true. In 2008-I had a goal of being published. It took hard work, dedication and support from some of the closest people in my life and it finally happened. I remember how I felt when I got to see my name in print. I loved being at a bookstore signing out copies of my own writings for children and teachers. I felt elated that my goal was now a reality. As you begin to think of your next big goal being met-don't forget the ones that you already have been able to fulfill. What was hard for you last year? What made you work extra hard? Did you get to see it through to completion? Before starting your new goal list...write down the things that you already made happen. Mindfulness builds awareness of our strengths and gratitude to those who helped out along the way. You can do it. Next year is next week but you don't have to wait to embrace all that you can do right now. -Read something great

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Stepping away from the news and business this evening, I poked around on YouTube for a nice Christmas video to share with you. For some reason I started wondering if Sitka, Alaska, where I’d spent 2-3 of my childhood years still celebrates Christmas. I remember a Christmas there that lit up the dark Alaskan winter. [...]

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It's hard to believe that this year is coming to a close. The years are really going by like a blur. I want to make sure I thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedules to visit with me.

Have a wonderful and healthy holiday season, and a healthy and prosperous New Year.

I look forward to offering you more helpful tips and resources to keep you moving forward on your writing and marketing journey right on through the new year.

Karen

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A New Year’s resolution is something that goes in one year and out the other.       ~Author Unknown

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a playlist of songs for your new beginning, from me.
h a p p y n e w y e a r !

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We’ve come into the season of holidays; Thanksgiving gives way to Christmas and moves inexorably to New Years. For centuries this season has stood for blessings, fellowship, and unity; if not in actuality, at least on the surface.

This time around something has gone off the tracks. Everyone is edgier, ruder, more desperate. One could attribute this holiday syndrome as an ever-increasing out-pouring of the stress felt by countless millions of people who don’t know what the next year will bring economically, politically, or within the family.

The question is: Why has our population become seemingly unequipped to keep themselves under control?

Our forefathers for centuries lived with the knowledge that nothing in this world is certain. Life and their own common sense taught them to plan for those lean times, rely only on necessities, especially when luxuries cost so much more than most could pay. They lived with few clothes for each member of the family.

A father with more than two pairs of pants, one work shirt and one for Sunday, and who could give the same for each of his family, was a wealthy man by the standards of the time.

A mother who didn’t lose at least two children to stillbirth, illness or injury before they were five years old was truly blessed. Children who still had both birth parents to attend their weddings, complete with cake and a bride’s veil, could remember that for the rest of their lives.

If one owned a small cabin or house, with enough land to provide a kitchen garden that would produce enough food to put away for winter stores, wealth was clear. Size of the home didn’t matter. Everyone would have a place to sleep, warm and secure when cold and snow took over the outer territory. The living room/family room/kitchen, etc. occupied one space, all of which might have measured 15×20 feet. A loft was always necessary for sleeping nooks for the children.

When the world industrialized and cities became the working world for many, credit became common for those who always paid their bills on time. The 1929 Depression and subsequent lean years didn’t teach everyone the price of greed. People afterwards merely moved to different avenues for making money.

By the early 21^st Century we’ve become barbarians in subtle ways. Take the incidents these past couple of days across the country. People, so absorbed in their passion to buy the latest and greatest for the cheapest price available, have been willing to kill or maim others to get to a desired item first.

Headlines in the news: Woman pepper sprays others, injuring 20 people, to get to a xbox on sale. Shoppers, anxious to get into a store for first pickings, dismantle a door and trample to death a young woman standing ready to open the door at the appointed time. A man is shot in a store’s parking lot during a sale.

Question: Have we become barbarous murderers in the name of possessions? Or, has greed so possessed our people through constant consumerism propaganda that we’re desensitized to our own actions?

Incidents like the above are on the increase, and not just at this season. When will be grow out of this selfish adolescence and back into the adulthoo

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新春大吉，祝愿大家兔年行大运，恭喜发财！

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Every December, I make a gingerbread house. I scrounge for the oldest ingredients in the cupboard (since I know the thing will not be eaten) and make the dough. After the dough is mixed, it must be refrigerated. After that, I bake the parts of the house which must dry overnight before construction. The next day comes royal icing making and the laborious process of holding the parts together as they dry. The pastry bags spring leaks and we (my kid assistant and I) end up sticking to the kitchen floor when we walk. When the house is complete, we mount it on cardboard and make a candy garden. We are so pleased with ourselves when it is done that we don't mind scrubbing down our sugary kitchen!

Six weeks later, the tree has been taken down. Nothing of the holidays remains except a shedding poinsettia and the gingerbread house. It's so hard to let it go. So much work! And it has given us pleasure appropriate to the season. But now?

I thought about those sand mandalas made by Buddhist monks--the ones that can take years to complete--and how they blow the sand away as part of the ritual when the work is completed. We're both quiet as my kid assistant stands poised over the little house with a hammer. Miraculously, the house resists the first blow! (That's how old and hard it is.) She tries again, and voila! Down it goes, shattering into pieces. We both manage to laugh. It was actually kind of fun.

Time changes. We move on.

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As we journey farther into the New Year, we’ve been reflecting on all the wonderful books published in 2010, and in doing so, we’ve also realized there are some classics worth revisiting. The authors and friends of Oxford University Press are proud to present this series of essays, drawing our attention to books both new and old. Below, Anatoly Liberman (the Oxford Etymologist) encourages us to read The Portrait of Mr. W.H.

By Anatoly Liberman

Oscar Wilde is most often quoted for his infinite wit, and those who know him are mainly aware of his comedies.  Some people are still charmed by his fairy tales (“The Happy Prince” and a few others; you should have seen how my undergraduate students – those poor products of popular culture – listen to this story!) and cannot shake off the attraction of The Picture of Dorian Gray.  But usually he is mentioned, if at all, in the context of his innumerable mannerisms, the overblown cult of the beautiful, homosexuality, and tragic imprisonment.  The Ballad of Reading Gaol is a famous title, but I wonder who reads the poem today.  More than anything else, Wilde wanted to sound brilliant, which did not cost him the least effort, because he was brilliant.  His paradoxes have become proverbial. In the form of hundreds of familiar quotations they serve as epigraphs to articles and books by our contemporaries—an incautious idea, for beside such an epigraph the rest looks pitifully ordinary.  Deafened by a cascade of paradoxes or touched to tears by sentimental dramas, even some of Wilde’s admirers did not notice that their favorite author was one of the cleverest men in the history of English letters.

My never-ending attempts to translate Shakespeare’s sonnets into Russian have recently returned me to many works I read years ago and remembered but dimly. One of them was Wilde’s essay The Portrait of Mr. W.H. It is a “novella” about the enigmatic man whom Shakespeare or his publisher called the only begetter of the sonnets.  There have been countless attempts to discover the “beauteous youth,” Shakespeare’s main addressee.  All of them failed, but it is obvious why Oscar Wilde was intrigued by the figure of the young man, the “master-mistress” of Shakespeare’s passion, the lord of his soul.  I could repeat the main line of Wilde’s reasoning, but over the years the details have faded from my memory, and now that I know so much more about the sonnets and about those who tried to read them like Shakespeare’s diary than I knew decades ago, I am immediately struck by the ingenuity and elegance of Wilde’s reconstruction.  He was familiar with all the important publications on the sonnets and studied them from the original editions.  With his photographic memory, he, most probably, knew all 154 of them by heart.  His arguments are irresistible.  Of course, Shakespeare told us that the youth’s name was the same as his, that is, William, but from lines like “a man in hue, all men in hues controlling” Wilde concluded that the lover’s name was Willie Hughes, a boy-actor in Shakespeare’s company.

However, The Portrait of Mr. W.H. is a story with its own plot.  It is about two people who hope to find some evidence that Willie Hughes existed.  Then suddenly the young man’s portrait turns up, but it is a forgery produced under the most bizarre circumstances by the investigator himself, to convince his friend!  The quest kills both men; yet they did not live for nothing.  We are in the world of Oscar Wilde in which art is more precious than reality, for reality can only imitate art.  No sacrifice is great enough if it is made for art’s sake.  The deadly spirit of make

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2010 brought many great things for me. Some of them personal, some of them writing related. Since this is a writing blog and not a bore-you-to-tears-with-my-personal-life blog, I'll stick to the latter.

2010 Highlights and what I've learned from them.

I finished revising my first novel, and promptly decided that it was horrible and would never be seen by anyone but my scribe sisters and I, started a few drafts for different works that I didn't pursue, and then I found my gem. I wrote it, and I rewrote it, and I rewrote it again, and I'm still revising it. I've learned so much from this manuscript, not just about sentence structure, plot, characters, etc. But also about my own writing style, my voice, and the mark I want to make as an author.

I entered it in few fun contests (and won, woohoo!) which landed me with partial/full requests. From those I learned a lot about what works and what doesn't in a novel opening, and that fiction is very subjective.

Watching Sisters in Scribe grow to having over 400 amazing followers! Our group has really come together over the past 12 months. We've grown as partners, learned each others habits and styles, and you lovely readers have been with us every step of the way. We're very grateful for your continued support.

Writing with Tangled Fiction has taught me more than I could have hoped for. I've learned I can write under pressure, I can meet strict deadlines, and I can still produce quality fiction that I am proud of.

I feel that I've come a long way as a writer, and I owe a lot of that to my scribe sisters.

Hopes for 2011!

I want to finish revising my current WIP and start submitting it to agents.

I want to draft another manuscript.

Of course I would love to sign with an agent, but my biggest goal for 2011 is to do my best, to grow as much as I can as a writer, and to write the best book that I can.

Happy 2011!

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Wishing everyone a peaceful and successful 2011!

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My goodness, where has 2010 gone? This year has gone by pretty fast. If you haven't noticed, I haven't been blogging consistently. That's cos I'm trying to prepare for the new year. I'm so excited cos I'm updating my blog's look! Yay! It's looking awesome so far. Of course, Zoe from Chic and Sassy Designs is updating it. She's awesome, btw.

Anyway, I won't be blogging as much, but I will be back in 2011 with a new look and maybe some new things. Happy holidays, everyone!

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