Resolution revolution

EAST COUNTY — Since the ’90s, Sandy Chase and her family have been putting their own spin on New Year’s resolutions.

On Dec. 31 of each year, the Chase family jots down hopes, or predictions, for each family member for the coming year; those predictions are revealed the following New Year’s Eve.

Sometimes, family members’ forecasts come true, like when Chase’s son, Dan, earned a promotion at work; other times, they are a little off. The prediction that a family member would become a parent to a pet alligator became a family joke over the years, Chase says, laughing.

This year, Chase, a University Park resident, hopes to make good on her family’s previous prediction — that she would become a best-selling author. Using her knowledge of resolutions, Chase partnered with co-author Violet April Ebersole to write “The Resolutionary War,” released Dec. 11.

The book, which was self-published through Create Space Independent Publishing Platform, sheds light on the struggle to keep promises made at the start of a new year. Chase hopes readers discover a story with which they can relate.

“Writing a resolution has been a tradition,” Chase says, smiling. “People might think twice about creating them now.”

The story focuses on 11 friends who, while at a New Year’s Eve party, decide to create and share resolutions with each other. The women don’t foresee, however, the string of mishaps and struggles that are to follow.

The group’s members, whom Chase calls “soldiers” because of their role in the war against breaking resolutions, fight to do what they said they would do. It’s the constant changing of their battle plans, or ways of keeping their word, that helps the characters accomplish the feats.

The character Mom, a published author who is working on her next book, creates a plan to help her fulfill her resolution of becoming better at managing her time. By changing her lifestyle — cooking larger meals and freezing the leftovers (her battle plan) — she saves herself time later and, in turn, can focus more on writing, Chase explains.

The first-person story, narrated by the character Brenda, is divided into chapters named after each month of the year, to show the progress each character makes.

Brenda’s involvement in the story is more complex, however, as she works to fulfill two resolutions — one real and one faux. She shares a fake resolution with her friends, because she isn’t ready to tell them what she really wants — to start a family. As a decoy, she tells the group she wants to improve the guest room in her home.

“It’s about dreams, struggles, coping and just life,” Chase says. “Resolutions can be catalysts, involving and affecting other people who didn’t even make the resolution; that’s what happens here.”

For the story’s setting, Chase and Ebersole, a seventh-generation Floridian, chose to pay homage to the state where they both live. Area establishments, including the Hob Nob drive-in restaurant in Sarasota, make cameos in the 294-page paperback.

The two women first met in 2004, when Chase was seeking an extra set of eyes to review her book, “Ancestral Spirits.” Her publishing company, Peppertree Press, connected her with Ebersole — a former technical writer for the government. The relationship of the two women eventually changed from editor and writer to co-authors.

After the more than two-year process of meeting at coffee shops in the towns in which the women live — Sarasota and Englewood — phone calls that lasted hours and scratching ideas and brainstorming new ones, the women became close friends.

“The Resolutionary War” is listed on amazon.com for $12.69, and is also available for $14.95 through Chase’s website, thewordmaster.net, or through requests via email to [email protected].
Feedback on Amazon’s website is welcome and appreciated, Chase says, because it is equally important to her as selling books; she wants people to learn something about the characters and to make connections with their own lives.

“What I want to leave the reader with is that all the characters change in some way in the story,” Chase said. “But, are they changing because of the resolutions, or in spite of them?”

Contact Amanda Sebastiano at [email protected].