December 9

Every year about this time I start to think about New Years Resolutions. Why, you may ask, considering I am actually fairly lousy at keeping them? I think the answer is simply this: optimism. One day something — anything — is going to stick, and my good intentions will pay off. That, and if I keep raising that metaphorical ‘bar’ so high, I may not ever manage to leap over it — but at least I’m leaping.

Day 9: Sitting around doing nothing…

This year is hardly any different. Surprised? Of course, not. So read on.

Of course, last year I also took the time to jot down some general — let’s call them — guidelines for setting resolutions. Having been found mixed success in the two resolutions I set last year, and having taken the time to review the guidelines I developed, I have decided those rules still stick — for the most part — and I’m reprinting them below for your own resolving reference.

But before I get into that — and having the notions still brewing in my head about what I want to resolve for this year — I thought I’d write a little more about writing.

For those who care, I’m still kinda stumbling through on the whole crazy writing project from last year. You know the one, right? “Three Sixty Five for Three Sixty Five. Knowing full well that 2006 was a bad year for my creative self, I’ve decided to set the goal of a very simple and reasonable 365 words per day. Not much. Just a short page with a medium sized font. That works out to about 2,555 words a week and nearly 135,000 in a year. A solid length of a first draft of a novel. The trick: this is accountable on Sunday night before bed, so it doesn’t matter if I don’t write a word the other six days (though that would be stupid) on Sunday night, the word-budget comes due.” What actually came out of that was 44,435 of 135,000 words — or about 33% of the original goal.

Now, one wouldn’t normally win accolades for achieving a mere third of what one set out to do. And I’m not fishing for such praise. But I would like to note two things: (1) Nearly forty-five thousand words is a fairly impressive collection of text in itself, and at about 300 words per page, that works out to roughly one hundred and fifty pages of text. And (2) that in taking all that time to write — and write, and write, and WRITE — while I came away short of the ultimate goal, I did set the foundations for a whole writing construct upon which I’m hoping to base one of my 2008 resolutions.

And the rules for those resolutions again?

1. Set only one (or at most two) goal(s) for the year. Anything more and you just can’t keep track and some are bound to slip off the radar.
2. Keep things simple. Don’t do a 180 degree turn on your life. Baby steps are the answer. Tweak only, don’t slash and hack.
3. Go incremental. You don’t need to change on January 1, 2007. You need to have a goal for December 31, 2007.
4. Don’t deny. Add something positive to your life. Or at least put a positive spin on it. You know, don’t “avoid sugar” rather “experiment with healthier food.”
5. Rewards are fine, but mostly they don’t work. Rather, just reward yourself with the change or build the reward into the change. Oh, and bragging rights. Those are always pretty sweet.

Thus, my goal is this: within the confines of the construct arising from last year’s project, I am going write, edit, and polish (ideally for publication in some form) at least four short stories by the end of next year. This fits into the rules as follows:

1. This is resolution number 1 of 1 (so far).
2. Simple? I’m just building on last year’s project.
3. I’m giving myself a year to write four stories of undetermined length.
4. Not denial — unless you count how much free time I’ll have for TV.
5. Reward is sweeeeeeet satisfaction.

Of course, as things get clearer and more interesting I’ll share the details of my progress here. But for now… well, we’ll see how it goes.