Resolve Your Resolutions

By Kristy McCaffrey

It’s that time of year again.

I recently came across the concept of Sankalpa from the yoga tradition. A sankalpa practice begins with the premise that you are already enough to fulfill your life’s dharma. The trick, then, is to focus your mind, connect to your most heartfelt desires, and channel the divine energy within. Sounds easy enough. Hah.

My writing goals last year were lofty and I didn’t reach them. My latest release (The Bluebird) was a cool ten months late. So, as I look at what I want to accomplish in 2017, I’m feeling both ambitious and cautiously guarded, knowing how easy it is for such plans to go out the window.

A few items on my to-do list for 2017:

**A new website.

**Distribute my Wings series at multiple vendors (they are currently exclusive on Amazon and the Kindle Unlimited program, but that will end this week; my goal has always been for wider distribution).

**Create an audio option of Alice: Bride of Rhode Island (if all goes well with this book, I’ll move on to the Wings series).

**Create a newsletter-exclusive novella tied to my Wings series (this is almost complete and is titled Song Of The Wren—it features Matt, Molly, Nathan, and Emma two years after The Wren and The Sparrow, with a cameo from Cale—be sure to sign up for my newsletter to get all the deets as soon as they’re available—this story will be FREE to newsletter subscribers).

**Release the first book in a new contemporary series. The first novel is titled Deep Blue and features a marine biologist studying great white sharks. It’s a sexy, adventurous story that I hope to release in the spring. It will be followed by two more books, tentatively titled Cold Horizon (about high-altitude mountain climbers on K2) and Ancient Winds (a female archaeologist in Bolivia). These three titles will be tied together with siblings, but I hope to write more books that will be loosely linked to these characters as well. I’ve been sitting on these story ideas for quite a while; with my Wings series now complete, I decided it was finally time to focus on these books. Creative concepts tend to gnaw on a writer and make them irritable if not eventually released.

I have a few more goals, but I’m not going to overload myself. I owe it to my husband to not be so burdened by work that I’m a grump all the time. So, I will focus on the new books, which are truly a desire of my heart, thus allowing the writing muse an easier path (and maybe an easier flow during the first drafts).

If we accept that we already have the tools we need to succeed, then the inner path of resistance can be quieted and we can simply get to work.

Here's to a productive 2017!

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Living In The Moment

By Kristy McCaffrey

“People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.”

                        ~ Joseph Campbell, The Power Of Myth

It’s a new year, and with that comes resolutions and declarations. And while, in the past, I’ve resolved to not eat sugar on Thursdays, or to try at least one new recipe a week, I decided this year for something more intangible, yet, I believe, just as important.

Living in the moment.

We’ve all heard this before, and it’s undoubtedly one of the most-used clichés around, but hear me out.

Over the holidays, I had a chance to see “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” starring Ben Stiller. With breathtaking locations, the film offers the intriguing theme of living life rather than simply dreaming about it. There is one key scene that stands out, a turning point, of sorts, for Mitty. He has been attempting to track down a famous, yet elusive, photographer named Sean O’Connell (played by Sean Penn). Finally, somewhere in the Himalaya, he practically trips over him. This may seem farfetched, but really, it’s not. View the movie and you’ll understand. O’Connell is trying to photograph a snow leopard, known as the ghost cat because it’s so difficult to capture on film. There is little doubt that’s he’s invested much time and effort to find this creature, that his livelihood depends on taking photos such as these. Suddenly, one appears, but O’Connell pauses, not taking the picture. Mitty asks why, and O’Connell responds that sometimes he just wants the moment for himself, clear and unfettered, without the distraction of the camera. It’s the moment that’s everything.

So, I wish for everyone the ability to pause, to let the worries slide away, for at least one moment every day. Watch a bird outside, notice the woman scanning your groceries and wish her a nice day, look at the sparkles in the snow or the wispy clouds in the sky. Be grateful for simple things—a cup of coffee, your favorite sitcom making you laugh, a visit with an elderly relative that you know may be your last.

Enjoy your moments this year for what they really are—a connection to life and proof that you’re alive.