2009-2010 Redux

The following is, in its entirety, the first entry in this blog from December of 2009. Through the clanging bells of another new year, it still rings true and clear.


My resolutions for the incipient new year are depressingly familiar, and I suspect not just for myself. Exercise more, eat less. Read more, work less -- or at least work smarter, rather than just harder. Spend more quality time with Penny (the wife) and Ellie (the dog).

And write more. Write more, and rewrite more, and edit more, and submit more for publication. Really. This time I mean it.

As you might have guessed from the above, I've been going through a spot of writer's drought lately. I can spout all the usual excuses (tough day at the office, suffering with a bad cold, a month's worth of Heroes episodes to catch up on, my Facebook status is, like, two days old ... ), but realistically?

Realistically, I simply haven't been putting my butt in the chair and banging away. I haven't been writing. And I could have been.

Hence, this Blog. I'm thinking blogging counts. I'm banging away at the keyboard, aren't I? It may not be fiction, or particularly enlightening, but it is word count. (One hundred and seventy seven words, to be precise, before this parenthetical sentence. Woo hoo!)

For the New Year, the promise / threat to myself is, I either write fiction for at least 30 minutes (only half an hour! what a wimp) on any given day that I'm home with access to the office, or I update this blog. I might even update the blog on days that I actually do manage to get some writing done with thoughts on the work in progress, or more likely thoughts on the process of the work.

Other writers are welcome to chime in with their own hints, hacks, and tales of success or woe. Non-writers are likely to be bored to tears. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Why? The idea being, as with all New Year resolutions, to develop new and improved habits, and break the old cycles of bad behavior. To push the butt back down in the chair until some words come out.

Yeah, good luck with that. Sounds like I'm barking at my own shadow to me. But maybe it's worth a try.

Happy New Year's Resolutions, everybody. Stay tuned.

Hey, I'm working on it. Off to get in my half hour of writing for January 1st, 2011.


Thanks for reading,


Stephen