The last weekend of the first month! I’d say I got the year off to a good start. So far, I believe I’m meeting my new year’s resolution to eat less sugar and get daily exercise, even if my sleep is still wonky. (3am to 12pm is a normal-ish schedule, right?) I’ve read five books, and even gotten on an Amazon bestseller list with my own book…a new year resolution I didn’t think was going to happen until May, or later.

It is challenging to overhaul your life and try to establish new, positive habits, when you’re entrenched in the stress and success (stressccess?) that old habits have brought. It is hard to acknowledge that if I hadn’t been a crazy person always pushing myself to my limits (and sometimes beyond…) I wouldn’t have landed all these literary opportunities so early on. Still, I need to fight to be calm and rational, collected and sustainable in my approach to my career now. I got through the gates and made it to the other side: I’m getting published. It is time to start thinking of the big picture and how I can give it my most sustainable best. I used to push myself until I burned out, then work up the steam to submit and query again in mad, extreme bursts. My career has momentum now, and I can’t afford to burn out and just go back to the drawing board.

In reality, I should be learning to mature into a more level-tempered individual for the sake of my personal life as much as my professional. I’ve always been a fireball of emotions and passions, and the older I get the more I realize I need to channel it and control this extroverted gift if I want it to benefit me. Constantly being stressed and explosive is not the best formula for happiness. Believe it or not, after a lifetime of ecstatic feelings and rapid cycling moods, that realization actually comes as kind of a shock to my system.

I’m looking forward to February, to meeting up with folks who are in town for the San Francisco Writer’s Conference, and turning 23. As January ends, I realize we are reaching the final three months before book launch. I’ll be sprinting as hard as I can until May…but holding back just enough not to burn out. It is a fine line to walk, but there is no point in time that this energy would be better used. A great debut will give relative momentum to my career in a way that no other event will. I’m trying not to panic, but to bear in mind that getting off on the perfect foot May 9th will make all the difference in the world.