So many people are reflecting on the past year, I suppose I should do something like that. Eventually. The thing is, I like to pretend we’re not facing the end of the year, because I’d then be able to pretend I’d gotten done what I wanted to…
For the most part, my brain doesn’t work the way most people’s do. I don’t have over-arching year-long goals like I want to write six novels this year, or something like that. My goals tend to be more the monthly/weekly/daily/twenty minutely type that are about thoughts like, “If I can just hang in there for five more seconds — !” Seat-of-my pants, off-the-cuff creativity. Much of my life-planning takes place moments in extremis.
Maybe I oughta ponder working on that…
Like my friend Cynthia, I don’t make actual resolutions, but I have a List that I keep in mind. It goes something like, Well, January 3, the cookies go back in the back of the cupboard, the chocolate goes back in the freezer, and I go back to the gym. It’s more than that, of course. It’s like what you have to do every morning when you wake up — decide what you need to accomplish, and get it done.
I admire Cyn. She was involved with a lying publisher at a small press who messed her around for AGES about a gorgeous cookbook for which she did all the photographs AND for which she invented all the recipes. It was a painful and frustrating process and the publishing house was duplicitous beyond belief and SO unprofessional, but she didn’t give up — and now, Cynthia’s book is out… because she simply looked at the challenges in front of her, and took that single step which put her on the road to conquering them each.
Tomorrow morning is your morning, just as the upcoming year is yours, too. Happy New Year.