So this year, I’m giving thanks and naming names. I’m sure I’ll forget someone, so  if you’ve helped me in the past year, thank you! (Carole at BankNewport—who cleared up a pesky lost check with grace and thoroughness—this means you.)

Here goes, in no particular order: a list of the people who make it possible for me to live an offbeat and truly wonderful life.

Paul Cronin, out getting some air

Paul Cronin
If this were the acknowledgement section of a book, the husband would be mentioned last. But since I thought of you first, here’s a public shoutout: thanks for making my life more enjoyable by being so supportive of your non-traditional wife! I look forward to more joint projects (and maybe even a vacation?) in 2011.

Clients
For some reason this great group of people thinks I’m worth the money they pay me, even when I disappear to a regatta during what should be a regular work week. Thanks for allowing me a very flexible schedule—and for staying solvent in a tough economy, so I can continue to thumb my nose at the unemployment figures.

Readers
Writing and publishing books can seem like a thankless and lonely job… until some random email comes in from an unknown reader who picked up one of my books at a library or bookstore and wrote to say “Keep Writing!”  Thanks to readers known and otherwise who have shared their enjoyment of Oliver’s Surprise and Cape Cod Surprise this year.

Teammates
For the past few years, I’ve done a lot of competitive sailing with a group of women who not only give up leisure time to freeze and boil with me, but who also make me laugh. Thanks also to the ever-widening circle of sailing friends who help make the regatta parking lot such a nice place to hang out.

Kim Couranz

In particular for 2010 I want to call out Kim Couranz, one of the top Snipe crews in the world, who crossed the line before me in every single race of our 8 regattas this year. Our fifth place finish at Nationals qualified us for the 2011 Snipe Worlds, and I’m really looking forward to more sailing together next year.

Community
I’ve lived in Jamestown, RI for almost fifteen years, longer than I’ve lived anywhere else, and a large part of my contentment is the people I see around town. I may not know your last name, but the friendly familiarity of our interactions comforts me. Whether I run into you at dinner downtown or in the post office, or if you’re one of those from whom we borrow tools and expertise, thank you for your positive outlook on life. And a very special thanks to all the great folks at Jamestown Hardware, who never laugh at the projects I take on.

Fellow Authors
A new circle of friends was added to my life in 2010 when we gathered together a gaggle of Boston-area authors to talk about how best to market our novels. Since then this loose-knit group has helped launch five books, including Cape Cod Surprise. Best of all, there’s more to come, beginning with Juliette Fay’s launch in January 2011. I can’t wait to share in the future successes of such a smart and supportive group!

Volunteers
Lots of people make my racing possible by running regattas, providing housing and airport pickups, storing cars and boats (that means you, Peter and Connie Commette), and generally supporting my addiction to one-design sailing around the country. I try to thank you whenever I think of it, but it can’t ever be often enough.

Nameless Small Favor Doers
Sometimes those unexpected good deeds from someone I don’t even know can take on a special significance. Locally we call them “Jamestown moments,” but they happen in many different places. So to all the unknown folks who have done me a favor in 2010, especially the nice woman I met yesterday at the grocery store checkout—thank you.

Family
Scattered and diverse as we all are, there’s a strong bond that holds us all together. Best wishes to both Newmans and Cronins for a great Thanksgiving, and Paul and I look forward to sharing it with many of you!

Last Friday, I submitted a file (only ten minutes late) that represented almost a year of hard work.  Cape Cod Surprise, complete with layout and cover art, has been sent off to meet the sharp eyes of my publisher and editor at GemmaMedia. [Insert appropriate “cheer” word here, along with much overdone punctuation.]

Writing a sequel requires all the same effort as the original book.  1. Dream up enough story line to start writing.  2. Figure out what the REAL story line is. 3. Edit. 4. Re-edit, to make all the little pieces fit the big picture.  5. Ask “is it as good as it can be” over and over, until the answer is “yes.”

In addition, the sequel required a little extra effort.  Because this time, I knew I was writing for publication—not just to brighten the eyes of my nephew at Christmas.  This time, I was on a deadline.  And it had to be even better than “good as it can be.” Better than the first book.   I believe it is… longer, richer—yes, better.  I can only hope my authorly bias is not blinding me to the faults of my latest creation.  I can only hope you the readers will love it too.

I also checked off an important sailing goal last week.  Kim Couranz and I won the Snipe Women’s Nationals in Jacksonville, FL.  This is the fifth time we’ve won this event (though only our third as a team), so that victory alone isn’t necessarily a goal as worthy of shout-out as shipping off a manuscript.  It’s where that regatta victory will lead us that counts: we’re now qualified for the Snipe Western Hemisphere and Orient Championship in September, an international regatta that draws together the best sailors in the class.  (And for those who keep score by gender, we are likely to be one of the few women’s teams at the event.)

I’ve written before about the three hats a writer must wear as she works through a project.  I’ve also written about the many definitions of success in this brave new world of publishing.  For all these reasons and many more, I made sure to celebrate last week’s writing milestone. There are so few finish line tapes across the road to publishing that when we hit one, it’s critical to raise a glass and breathe in the heady air of “I did it!”  Because all too soon my manuscript will be back for edits, like a teenager who returns from college with fresh opinions based on his contact with others.

Kim and I should’ve celebrated our regatta win with a raised glass too.  Instead we jumped in the van to drive the 13 hours back to Annapolis Sunday night, so she could show up for work the next day.

And it didn’t feel so important to consciously celebrate a finite victory like winning a regatta. It’s so much more obvious that we achieved our goal when there is a printed scoreline of firsts (what we sailors call “bullets”).

Authors have no such scoreline; instead we single out the good reviews and positive feedback, building a moat around our egos to protect against the less pleasant comments.  There are always more books that could be sold, more readers that could be touched, more Amazon reviews that could be written.

Besides, Kim and I will be celebrating all summer, as we push to improve our skills toward meeting our new goal (a respectable finish at the Westerns). Because that’s what self-motivated people do: as soon as we achieve one goal, we look for the next.

But for a few days, while my new book is out of my hands being edited by someone else, I will savor last week’s writing victory.  Because whether or not this sequel is actually as good as I think it is, I’ve now answered once and for all one of my great internal doubts:

Can she do it again?

Yes, she can!

And that’s a victory worth celebrating.

I’m lucky not only to have some great friends who are also terrific sailors, but a super-duper hubby who understands that sometimes I need to go on vacation without him to go sailing with those aforementioned great sailing friends.

When I’m really lucky, those aforementioned sailing friends don’t mind if I use some of my vacation time to head to bed early with a good book. It’s pretty decadent to ease in between the sheets without second thought of “did I move the laundry into the dryer”; “I need to remember to get in touch with the folks at the other office to make sure we’re on track on that important project”; or “must remember to get more food for the dog who depends on me.”
And I’ll admit that cozying up with a good book is somehow even a little more indulgent after a day of dinghy racing, when I’m usually a little body tired and mind numb. So that all I can focus on are the words on the page.

I’ve had a few serendipitous book choices follow me to regattas—often location or theme has intertwined with my regatta/sailing experience. Two years ago, at the same regatta in Clearwater, Florida, from which I’m writing this post, I dove into Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. What a forceful book about a strong woman—even if she doesn’t always believe she is. The novel, published in 1937, takes place in early 20th century central and southern Florida, and tells the tale of Janie and the very different parts of her life as she is married to three very different men. But though parts of Janie evolve over her life, one thing remains steady—she believes in love and wants that to be the foundation of her marriages. Janie’s strength as she handles what is dealt her is astounding.

Much of Janie’s story is set in the Florida Everglades, and includes a riveting account of Janie and her third husband Tea Cake’s experiences in the Okechobee hurricane. To head to our next regatta in Miami, we towed the Snipe down I-75 through the Everglades. It was a challenge to look past the chain link fence cordoning the River of Grass off from the cars and trucks whizzing by, but it definitely made the trip fly by to imagine Janie and Tea Cake trying to make ends meet in that neck of the woods (or rather, subtropical wetlands).

Today we sailed three races out on the Gulf of Mexico, and the breeze increased steadily through the day. My mind is fried, and body a tad tired, so I’m off to bed now with a good book. Perhaps I’ll find a character, location, or theme that will resonate with my sailing, traveling, and camaraderie experiences this week. My guess is that I will.