Hibernation 2015 - wherein I discuss stashing food supplies and what I achieved of my pre-hibernation goals, and perhaps, the dreams I will dream during said winter incubation period

I recently got asked to do a Thing in another city, and I very seriously replied that I was, in fact, in hibernation until the end of February. A conservative estimate. In truth, the end of hibernation depends on the end of Snow Season, which is different from the end of Winter. Although the two are not wholly unrelated.

Northern Michigan winters are not something I take lightly. Yes, there are places where winter is worse and/or more persistent. But this is nothing to be sneezed at. Unless you have the flu on top of being trapped in your own house and really we all should have just gotten flu shots. No, I'm not completely cut off from civilization -- see, I have the internet, I have all the civilization I need -- but when your means of getting to the grocery store or anywhere else in town is a tiny compact car, you reevaluate your ability to fight the terror in white.

And damn if road slush didn't nearly do me in the other day. It wasn't even snow! Or ice! Just the goofy slush! Argh.

So I don't travel between Christmas and the start of March. Not if I can help it and certainly not for any distance.

The cupboard shall not run bare.

I have a December through March worry, which becomes a full on January and February neurotic maxim, to always have several days worth of food on hand -- food that can be turned into meals, not just a box of Cheerios and a pound of butter. Shudder. Because we never know when the next big snow is going to hit.

Last year the weather forecasts were dead on. Then again it seemed like we got 2-5" every day last winter, so I guess it's not that hard to predict. But this year they predict 3" we get none. They predict 6" we get none. They predict 5" we get 12." Sigh. And even when a mild 5" fell earlier this week, and I had diligently shoveled out all the requisite paths -- clear sidewalk for school kids, clear steps for mail man, clear driveway for me to get the car out -- I slipped and slid all over the place courtesy of aforementioned slush. So I try to stay off the roads the day of snowfall if I can. (A home office is a brilliant thing.) But if it snows for three days . . . I'm screwed. Or at least stranded.

Which is fine. Because I prepare.

I like to have enough on hand that I could, if needed, wait it out for a week until a clear day afforded me passage to the market that did not land me in the ditch or making new friends and acquaintances of the let's trade insurance information variety. At the very least I can stretch things out by eating rice and kimchi until I realize that I'm not Korean enough -- even in my own mind -- to eat kimchi with every meal. (It should be noted that technically I'm not Korean at all, I just watch too much K-drama and it's been rubbing off on me.)

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NaNoWriMo: Post Mortem

Some people refuse to let go of their NaNoWriMo energy and come December 1, they immediately embark on NaNoFiMo (National Novel Finishing Month), where those pesky little things like endings, transitions, and all of chapter five are written.

Others engaged in NaQuRejMo and immediately query agents about their brand new NaNoBabies

My biggest goal at the end of any crazily intense period of writing is to keep writing consistently even if I'm not writing at the previous quantity. It's been a goal I had to abandon this month. With the end of semester, the holidays, and all the things I put off in November [edit of earlier post where I said December although it's beginning to feel like a Freudian slip], I had no choice but to plunge back into real life and take care of shit before shit took care of me.

I'm saving up my thoughts and hopes and energy for writing starting the week after Christmas/January. I have many a writing friend who has decided that 2010 will not only be the start of a new decade but the beginning of a new chapter in her life: publication. I too am throwing my hat in the ring and going for it with gusto.

Yes, I've been submitting short stories regularly for the past eight months, but, as of yet, nothing has come of that. What I plan to work toward in 2010 is seeing a short story in print and getting a novel to the point where I can query it ... and the agent can, of course, say yes!

I am also hoping to rid myself of my proclivity to using exclamation points in blog entries and responses.

Those are my 2010 goals -- not resolutions, but goals. Although, truth be told my one 2009 New Year's Resolution -- to read 52 books this year -- has almost been fulfilled! 44 books read and nearly two weeks of vacation coming up before the year ends. :)

[edit: as of Sunday night, 45 books read so far this year.]