Resolve 2013: Volunteerism: Start Small

"Continuing the Resolution Tour..."

Please welcome one of my favorite people, she is not only a wonderful author and giving person but a true friend to anyone she meets. 

Maggie Jaimeson

ETERNITY

When I think of volunteering I am immediately overwhelmed with possibilities.  For many years, I did no regularly scheduled volunteering. There just wasn’t enough hours in the week to know I could commit to a schedule. My volunteering tended to be things like “I’ll read that for you.” “I’ll build that website for you.” Or “I’ll coordinate a contest.”  Time-limited and something I could do from home were the key elements.. Now that I’m not working 60 hours a week at another job and writing on the side, I’ve been wondering where and how I should volunteer.  Actually, it’s kind of scary.

My natural tendency is to want to solve a problem like hunger or homelessness or education access.  Nope too big for me right now.  For 2013 I decided, instead, to focus smaller. To focus on my small community and to take on something that would benefit the community and benefit me.  I decided to volunteer at the Oregon Humane Society.

I’ve been wanting to adopt one or two cats. Our three Ohio humane society rescue cats have all passed away over the past five years. The last one left us almost two years ago now.  My husband, however, isn’t ready to have new pets yet. So, I’ve decided to satiate my cat need by volunteering at the local humane society. I can play with cats, feed them, socialize them, clean their spaces and get my cat fix while still doing something they need.  It’s a small thing, but it counts.

If you are considering volunteering, think close to home and what cause you want to support. Start small. A couple hours a month is fine, or an hour a week. Whatever you can schedule. There are so many worthy causes and everyone needs more help.

Contact Maggie: Website | GoodReads | Facebook | Twitter | Blog

I'm also including a list of the 9 bloggers and their resolution:

THE RESOLUTION TOUR - January 1 - 9, 2013

Maggie Jaimeson - Take a Vacation

Jessa Slade - Get Organized

Paty Jager - Volunteerism

Linda Mercury - Creating a Literary (or Creative) Life

Jenna Bayley-Burke - Eat Healthier

Cassiel Knight - No More Procrastination

Cathryn Cade - Take Time for those OTHER Creative Passions

Su Lute - Reduce Stress: Find and Follow Your Bliss

Jamie Brazil - Shrink My Closet 

The best way to support authors you like is to friend and fan them on social media sites. If you enjoy the posts from this tour please show your appreciation by liking or becoming a friend or fan. Thank you for stopping in and visiting.  

I'm talking about losing weight over at Jenna Bayley-Burke's blog today. Come on by.

What Would you Do If You Could Live 800 years?

Welcome Maggie Jaimeson!

Thanks for letting me post today, Paty. I’d love to talk about how my upcoming release this month, ETERNITY, came to be written. My reading has always been split between Science Fiction and Romance. I love the ideas that SF explores—ideas that I believe help to inform today’s world. But I’m sometimes depressed by the dystopian worlds that are portrayed or the hopelessness that is sometimes the end of the novel. I love romance because I truly believe love is contagious, love wins in the end, and that in finding love it brings out the best in us and makes us more than we can be alone. So, the combination of the two genres works for me.

ETERNITY began as pure SF with an age old search and question. What would happen if we found something akin to the Fountain of Youth? Tales of such a fountain have been recounted across the world for thousands of years, appearing in writings as early as Herodotus and then truly played out in the 16th century when Ponce de Leon searched for the Fountain of Youth and ended up in what is now Florida. Of course, Ponce de Leon did not find the Fountain of Youth, though many people around the world still think of youthful exuberance and energy when they think of Florida.

In my novel, a type of Fountain of Youth is discovered, but not in the warm southern climes or tropical regions that explorers searched. It was discovered in Antarctica during a science exploration. Rather than a fountain, it is a virus encapsulated deep in the antarctic tundra found while sampling cores drilled 200 feet below the icy surface. As with all scientific exploration that may have worldwide implications, Science Fiction asks the question how does that find get communicated, manufactured, and distributed? And when that happens who gains and who loses? Based in our current world realities, my assumption is that a find that important would be taken over by a corporation and that corporation’s power would extend worldwide. Depending on whether you believe scientific finds of that magnitude would be used for good or evil (or both) is what shapes a story.

Now the romance angle. Let’s face it, science, exploration, world-wide corporations are based on relationships at their foundation. And some of those relationships are bound to be romantic. What if you were on the exploration team and fell in love with one of the team members? I could imagine all types of betrayal scenarios that could enter that relationship—particularly when corporate and worldwide politics are involved. If this person was the love of your life, would you carry that love 50 years? 100 years? 200 years? In our world today, where marriages barely last five to ten years, it’s hard to imagine loving someone for hundreds of years. Would we forget that love? If we learned that person was in trouble, would we intervene to help? Would our memories resurface or would the betrayal still be raw, even 200 years later?

ETERNITY pits our lovers against each other in a major way. One person believes that the use of the ETERNITY virus has ruined the world and is working to develop a retrovirus to return people back to a “natural life span” –living 80-100 years. The other person believes the problem is not long life, but the way it has been handled by the corporation and politics. The only thing that gives them a common cause is a mutual hate of Eternity, Inc. But is hate and distrust of a common enemy a way to rebuild a relationship? Even if they bring down the corporation they still have to face the fundamental question. Is it good for humanity to live such long lives?

What do you think? Would you want to live 800 years if your body aged very slowly? So, when you are 200 years old, your body is still that of a 20 year old. At 400 years, your body is that of a 40 year old. What would you do with all that time? How do you think our lives and our world would change? I’d love to hear from you, and I’d love for you to see if any of your thoughts about that world are reflected in my book, ETERNITY. Available as an ebook on Amazon and Barnes and Noble May 13th and in print May 30th.