new year - Debbie Young's Writing Life

Tiptoeing into the New Year (2015)

Posted on January 5, 2015July 18, 2016 by Debbie Young

Welcome to my first blog post of the New Year!

Well, did you miss me? Did you notice I’ve been offline for a bit? Probably not – if you’ve got any sense, you’ll have spent a lot of time offline over Christmas too.

But I have to say I’m greeting the first working week of the New Year with renewed energy and enthusiasm, after spending as much time as possible away from my computer during my daughter’s two-week break from school.

When I furtively dipped back into the internet now and again during the holiday fortnight, it was effectively under cover – I’d set up an out-of-office message to cover my two email accounts: the online equivalent of dark glasses.

In fact, if I hadn’t been part of Helen Hollick’s fabulous Christmas Party Blog Hop, I’d have spend even less time online. Reading the other participants’ fascinating posts was the main reason that I sneaked back to my computer at all.

Why Christmas Isn’t Over Yet…

Catch it before it’s too late!

What do you mean, you didn’t read the 25 fabulous articles on the blog hop, on different aspects of Christmas traditions and with plenty of festive fiction samples to enjoy?

Fear not, there’s still time to catch them with a clear conscience, because, as I’ve just discovered, Christmas isn’t actually over just yet. I’m not talking about waiting for Twelfth Night (today, 5th January, according to some people, or tomorrow, 6th, for others, including me). The vicar’s letter in the new Hawkesbury Parish News states that the festive season doesn’t officially conclude until Candlemas on 2nd February. Now there’s the excuse Laura was looking for to keep the Christmas tree up for a little longer.

In the meantime, I’m back in the room – and I’ve just been blogging about the benefits of going offline on the advice blog of Alliance of Independent Authors. You can read that post here, if you’re interested: Don’t Let the Internet (Tail) Wag the Author (Dog)

What’s the longest you can bear to stay offline – or indeed online?
Do you have a top tip to share on avoiding internet burnout?
Feel free to join the conversation via the comment box below!

Personal life, Reading, Writing

In Praise of Community Magazines

Posted on January 9, 2014July 18, 2016 by Debbie Young

Every month, I write columns for two local magazines – the Hawkesbury Parish News and the Tetbury Advertiser. Both of these publications are lovingly put together by hugely experienced volunteers for the benefit of the local community.

The papers combine articles by local people and community groups with affordable advertising opportunities to help local businesses attract new customers. Both publications plough back any profit into local good causes and charities. They contribute significantly to the well-being of their local communities, both by enabling effective local communications accessible to all (and not just to those on the internet) and by improving local facilities and services – factors which are particularly important in rural areas such as ours. Such magazines may also be significant and much-needed customers for local print companies.

Serving The Whole Community

Impressively, they manage to keep the cover price of both papers low – Hawkesbury Parish News costs just 40p an issue (which includes free delivery by hand to your home) and Tetbury Advertiser is free. Thus not even a housebound pensioner on a small fixed income with no internet access need ever miss out on feeling a part of their local community. Even if they never get out to take part in any of the many local activities featured in these pages, they will still feel like they are part of the community. If I were in charge of the New Years’ Honours List, the volunteers who dedicate an extraordinary amount of time and effort into putting out these publications would not go unrewarded.

Every Household’s Favourite Read

One might be forgiven for wondering whether in this internet age, which threatens the viability of so many local and national newspapers, such magazines might be on the wane. A few years ago, working for a local private school that was trying to discover the most effective advertising media , I undertook a survey of the school’s current pupils parents to discover which were the best read newspapers and magazines in their households.

I expected to learn that upmarket newspapers and glossy magazines were their favourite – The Times and the Financial Times, perhaps, plus Country Life, Country Living and Tatler. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the papers of which they were least likely to miss an issue were local community magazines such as Hawkesbury Parish News and the Tetbury Advertiser. It’s not surprising that both of these publications have been gaining size, strength and readership year on year.

As you’ll have guessed, I’m proud to support and write for both of these great publications. To make my articles available to a wider audience, including the Hawkesbury and Tetbury diaspora, I post them up on my author website a week after each print issue will have landed on people’s doormats. To suit the interests of their readership, these articles usually relate either to the time of year or to local activity in our part of rural Gloucestershire. So here’s my first column for HPN in 2014, which manages to do both at once.

New Year, New Strategy

In an old notebook, I recently discovered a list of New Year Resolutions that I’d written down about 15 years ago. Although I don’t remember making the list, the resolutions were familiar, being pretty much the same ones that I make every year.

Why the repetition? Because like most people, I never manage to keep my New Year Resolutions beyond the end of January – though as an optimist, I never fail to make some.

But this year will be different, because I’ve hit upon a cunning plan: my 2014 list will be comprised of things I DON’T want to achieve. That way, by breaking them early on, I’ll reach my true goals. Thus:

“To spend more than I earn each month” will enable me to amass regular savings

“To consume more calories each day than I burn off” will precipitate steady weight loss

“To avoid training 3-4 times each week to prepare for the HU5K* Run” will ensure that I’m able to run it with ease, in a respectable time

Writing this column mid-December, I see no flaw in my lateral thinking, but will it actually work? I’ll tell you on Saturday 14th June as I cross the HU5K finishing line…

Happy New Year to you all, however you resolve to spend it!

* HU5K is the Hawkesbury Upton 5K Fun Run which I help organise to raise funds for the village school. It takes place the Saturday before Father’s Day each year, and 2014 will be the third annual event. For more information, please visit its website: www.hu5K.org.

My Previous Years’ Posts About New Year Resolutions (which, by chance, all have a connection with running!)

My New Approach to New Year’s Resolutions (2013)
Surprisingly Resolute as the New Year Begins (2012)
Run, Rabbit, Run (2011)

Personal life

A Study in Tidiness

Posted on January 13, 2013July 18, 2016 by Debbie Young

Entrance to my study — Before: enter at your peril – and yes, that IS a spinning wheel in the corner

I don’t know what it is about this time of year, but in the last week or so I’ve been hurtling about the house in a frenzy, clearing out cupboards, rationalising bookshelves, streamlining wardrobes. My home is looking as much like a showhouse as a Victorian cottage is ever likely to be.

On Wednesday, I spent about three hours sorting out my nine-year-old daughter’s bookshelves, alphabetizing the novels by author and sorting the non-fiction into classifications, as if her bedroom was a library. (You can call me Dewey.)

Today, I’ve spent best part of the afternoon clearing up my study – no mean feat by anybody’s standards, as you can see by the “before” photos here.

Though hard work at the time, it’s definitely worth the effort. I’ve long been a believer in the basic principles of Feng Shui (well, the lazy person’s version, that is – I don’t go in for all that purist business of deflecting poison arrows and hanging octagonal mirrors). It’s common sense that if you surround yourself with order rather than chaos, you will feel calmer and more in control of your life.

I’ve also always been fond of rearranging furniture and am constantly in pursuit of the perfect layout. A little bit too fond: I recently googled it to see whether it is a clinically labelled condition. (I didn’t find one – yet.)

Messy corner of my study — Rookie mistake here: that’s a chair, not a bookshelf

I wonder whether my current urge for order stems partly from the new neighbours who are renovating the formerly derelict house adjacent to mine. They have transformed the place. Its shiny glowing newness puts my house to shabby shame. My previous next door neighbour was a recluse with a profound antipathy to DIY. He had a broken window at the back of the house that another elderly neighbour swore had not been repaired since the Second World War. He elevated procrastination to an art form. And he set a very low bar for any aspirations we might have had to keep up with the Joneses.

Bookshelf — That’s more like it: books on shelves- oh, and in a laundry basket. Oops.

But the new neighbour’s renovations had been going on for some months before my latest round of compulsive tidying took hold. So maybe it was more a natural reaction to Christmas and a coping mechanism for absorbing the influx of Christmas presents into an already overflowing household.

There again, the imminence of my birthday (5 days to go and counting) may be a trigger. Do I need to prove to myself that I must make a difference to my environment before I get another year older?

But there’s another annual occurrence that I suspect is the trump card: the arrival of a certain green printed letter on my doormat. No, it’s not an early birthday card from the Wizard of Oz, nor a John Lewis credit card statement. It’s a reminder from the HMRC that self-assessment tax returns are due by the end of this month. And I really hate filling in my tax return.

This is no tidying bug – it’s tax evasion, Jim, but not as we know it.

Tidy study — Now all I need to get in order is my tax return.

Family, Personal life

2012 – That’s SO Last Year!

Posted on January 2, 2013July 18, 2016 by Debbie Young

When I first started thinking about the imminent arrival of 2013, I didn’t want 2012 to end. For so long, 2012 had been a year to look forward to, full of promise, from that day back in 2007 when London, my home city, was awarded the 2012 Olympics.

Then a couple of years later the build-up to the Royal Diamond Jubilee began. Although I wouldn’t describe myself as a royalist, I was excited at the prospect of living through historic events that people would talk about for generations to come, like VE Day or Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. (I’m now rooting for the Queen to outlive her famous ancestor and set a new record that will be, by association, ours.)

2012 did not disappoint

These events created some very special memories for me. As the commentators said of the now legendary “Super Saturday” for British athletes, I will be proud to look back and say “I was there”.

Not all my favourite memories of 2012 relate to national events, but my other personally and locally momentous occasions, like the national ones, were planned and expected well in advance:

meeting my Canadian cousin’s daughter for the first time (I hadn’t seen her father since he was a child, in the 1970s)
a visit from my American schoolfriend’s daughter in July (I’d last seen her mother in the 1980s)
my father’s 80th birthday in September
the publication of my first book in October

As yet, 2013 will be more of a mystery tour. It feels odd to be on the threshold of a year of uncertainty, after a year of such precise planning and predictability.

It doesn’t help that I always find odd years disconcerting. 2012 always sounded like it was going to be neat and pleasing; 2013 just sounded messy and vaguely threatening.

But as it turned out, on New Year’s Day 2013 we awoke to blue skies and sunshine for the first time in weeks. This promising omen was echoed by a surge of optimism from my friends and family, cascading down my Facebook timeline and Twitter feed. Everyone seemed on great form and ready for another year of triumph

And all of a sudden, instead of being filled with foreboding as I take down the 2012 wall calendar and flip open the 2013 one in its place, I’m feeling excited and optimistic. It doesn’t matter any more that our national annus mirabilis has drifted quietly downstream into the history books. Starting to fill in my 2013 diary, I’m already at ease with writing the new year’s date – something that usually takes me months to get used to.

I’m sure I’m not the only one to be thinking to myself: “2012? That’s SO last year!”

Happy New Year and may 2013 bring you your heart’s desire.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Family, Personal life

My New Approach to New Year’s Resolutions

Posted on December 28, 2012July 18, 2016 by Debbie Young

English: New Year's Resolutions postcard — Gosh, what a list to remember – no wonder the Bishop had to write it down (New Year Postcard – Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I love new beginnings. I love the opportunity they bring for replacing bad habits with good ones. I feel just as excited about the approach of New Year as I do about Christmas. Because for me, New Year’s Eve is inextricably linked with making New Year’s Resolutions.

That’s not the only time that I look forward to making resolutions. With the single-mindedness of a heat-seeking missile, I find other opportunities to contemplate reform all year round: the beginning of each school term, the summer solstice, the spring and autumn equinoxes. My birthday on 18th January is perfectly timed to jump-start any stalled New Year’s resolutions before I’ve had time to forget what they were.

If I still find myself in need of prompts to change, I can always fall back on that old mantra beloved by the manufacturers of fridge magnets and bookmarks:

Today is the first day of the rest of your life

But there is such a thing as trying too hard. We could probably all come up with a huge list of things we’d like to change about ourselves: lose weight, get more exercise, eat better, drink less, keep the house/car/offspring cleaner/tidier, keep on top of the gardening/ironing/housework, read more books/better books/less trash.

When Did Your New Year’s Resolution Last All Year?

One of the the reasons these things crop up every year on most people’s lists is that every year they fail. I can’t remember anyone ever telling me on New Year’s Eve that they’ve had to find a new resolution because they’ve kept the one they made last year.

So for 2013, I’m going to make just one New Year’s Resolution. That way, I reckon I’ll have a greater chance of success. By choosing this resolution very carefully, I’ve stumbled on a great strategy. If I manage to keep this one, I reckon I’ll end up reforming in lots of other ways without even trying. What is this powerful resolution? It is TO GET MORE SLEEP.

Lately, I’ve got into the bad habit of burning the midnight oil. I lead a very busy lifestyle: I go out to work, I run my own business, I have family commitments including school and PTA volunteering, I’m the trustee of a local diabetes-related charity, I blog, I write books. Sometimes the only way I can come close to doing everything I need to do is to cut down on my sleep.

English: Margaret Thatcher, former UK PM. Fran... — “The lady’s not for sleeping.” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Who Needs Sleep Anyway?

Unfortunately, I’m no Margaret Thatcher. No, hang on, make that fortunately. What I mean is, I need more than the four hours of sleep per night on which our former Prime Minister governed the country. (Well, that explains a lot.) To be fully functional, I need at least 8 hours in winter and 7 hours in summer. Don’t ask me why there’s a difference but there very definitely is. When sleep-deprived, I do everything less well/less frequently/less enthusiastically/late.

An Ingenious (Re)Solution

My theory is that if I focus on getting my full quota of sleep, everything else about me will improve. I’ll be much more likely to have the energy to cook meals from scratch instead of resorting to ready-meals. With more physical energy, I’ll be more likely to go for a run. With my wits fully about me, I’ll be more productive and focused in my work. Rising earlier, fresher, in the morning, I’ll be less likely to be late for work. Going to bed earlier, I’ll find more time to read in bed: that ‘to-read’ pile will diminish in no time.. It may seem counter-intuitive to get more done by doing nothing, i.e. sleeping, but I truly believe it could work.

So if in 2013, you see me taking forty winks at my desk or nodding off in School Assembly, please don’t wake me up. I’d hate to break my New Year’s Resolution.

Happy New Year!

What’s your attitude to New Year’s Resolutions? Do tell!