There are people in the world who plan ahead — they know what they are going to do and when and really work hard to get there. These are the planners and they take responsiblity for their actions.

There are people in the world who thrive on chaos. The more there is the happier they are because that way no one notices what it is they are doing or that they aren’t doing what they said.  If anything goes wrong, it’s not their fault. They are usually VERY busy people.

When I worked for the police department we had a saying “Your lack of planning is not my emergency.” No, we didn’t say it to anyone outside our little group and we certainly didn’t even consider it for a real emergency. No, these were calls from people who — and seriously we’d get them — I didn’t leave in time to get to the bus, I’m going to be late for work, I need a ride.  Okay, and you called us because??????  Yes. I took more than one of those calls — from different people even! Or there was the person who called 911 on their way to the airport on a holiday weekend and didn’t consider the traffic and didn’t leave in enough time. They wanted us to call the airline and tell them that they needed to hold the plane so this person could board. Um, well, that wasn’t our jurisdiction and this is an emergency because? Oh, the person didn’t plan ahead. This is a true story.

I’m not saying these folks planned their chaos — it happened and they paniced and looked for a solution. However, their lack of planning was not our emergency.

My mother was a HUGE chaos thriver - -man the more chaos she had the happier she was. If there wasn’t any, she’d create it. We were never on time for anything. My dad, sister and I figured this out — there was some dire need she had to always be rushing and late. We were all planners, the bane of her existence. Us planner folk got together and figured out that if we told her that we had to be somewhere an hour before the actual time we’d get there without all the drama. Sadly, she figured it out — when suddenly she was arriving places on time and we weren’t all harried, she kinda noticed. But we were planners! We had a grip in things!  We then created a sort of chaos for her by bouncing around the times we told her — sometimes it was the real time, sometimes the fake time, sometimes 15 minutes of fake, sometimes an hour. What really destroyed, errrrr confused her, was when I got my license and could leave and get where ever we needed to go by myself (or whoever was ready) without her. Actually, it incensed her because, well we just didn’t understand.

I’ve seen this situation in at least one of my jobs on an internal level — the worker bees plan and arrange and set up and take care of the details - -and it’s the person they answer to who thrives on the chaos so that no matter how hard they try to get things done on time, well opps!

A friend of mine recently told me that we learn certain coping skills as children — i.e., making up different times to arrive for the perennially late chaos thriver that we still use as adults, but they no longer work.  I’ve mulled over his statement quite a bit this past week– the holidays tend to bring out the best in chaos. I know more people who can’t wait for them to be over so there’s less turmoil. Sitting in traffic or taking a break from writing, I’ve considered it and how I deal with chaos now with my little planner brain. I don’t think I’ll ever be a fan of chaos. I like things, nice, neat and orderly. I think that’s why I’m a good secretary — I know how to keep order in what I’m doing.

So my plans for the New Year — well I have a book in edits that’s due for release in March, I have two others in submission, two others out for Beta reads and one I’m on my third personal pass on. I plan to complete the edits (sans chaos), wait out the two submissions, when I get the two betas back to go through them and implement changes/comments that look good and get those out for submission. meanwhile, I’m working on my third pass and looking at the next in line I plan to write.

I have other plans — I’m going to be taking a few classes at my local junior college - they have a pretty good night program and some of the finest instructors you’ll find.

So are you planning your 2009 or just going to let it happen?