It’s time again for the last
universal ritual of the holiday season – the making of New Year’s Resolutions.
Sometimes this is an exercise in
futility. No matter how much we want to, no matter how much we mean to, somehow
all our good intentions get lost in the daily swirl of duties and desires and
we end up never losing weight or keeping the basement clean or whatever it is
we wish to get accomplished.
Perhaps that’s the problem. What we
resolve to do is what we want to be done, not something we want to do. Usually
it’s something that has to be done over time, something life changing (like
losing weight), something that can’t be done in the one to three week period
most resolutions stay in our head. The very grandiosity of these resolutions,
though, is usually their downfall. To use the universally understood resolution
of losing weight as an example, during the first few weeks of the new year we
are painfully punctilious about following the new and usually much too extreme
diet. Then the ‘it can’t hurts’ sneak in… just one cupcake, or it’s Jane’s
birthday cake, or Mexican food is good for you… And poof! Suddenly you’re
eating just like you always have and the well-meant New Year’s Resolution is
nothing but dust in your rearview mirror.
However, New Year’s Resolutions do
have a purpose – they make us focus however briefly on what we want. And make
us see what is truly important to us. I think the main failure point of
resolutions is that we make them too big and too draconian. Instead of resolving
‘I’m going to lose thirty pounds by April 1’ or ‘I’m going to write two 100,000
mainstream novels this year, and have a contract on at least one of them,’
(either one of which is a guaranteed setup for failure) think smaller.
For example, do like a friend of
mine did and resolve that you are going to write for a minimum of thirty
minutes a day. Every day. Without fail.
Resolution junkies would probably
sneer at that. It’s not life changing enough, they say. It’s not profound. You
can’t get anything worthwhile done in thirty minutes.
It is doable, though, and that’s
better.
If you need further proof, my
friend is a single career woman with a thriving business as well as a large and
demanding family. She said she was going to write every day for at least thirty
minutes and she has – for well over 500 days. She has written while waiting for
business appointments, waiting for her car at the garage, in the emergency room
even. Sometimes she gets it done early in the morning, sometimes she barely
makes it before midnight hits. A lot of days she writes more, but she does her
thirty minutes every single day. Every. Single. Day.
Except one.
The one day she missed I think even
Scrooge would forgive her – she was under heavy sedation for twenty-four hours
following emergency surgery. The next day, though, she called somewhat groggily
for pad and pen and made up the missed time.
Using this system she has written
the first two books of a series which is now under consideration by a major
publisher.
All from a simple resolution to
write thirty minutes a day.
So you see, a viable New Year’s
Resolution doesn’t have to be overwhelming or grandiose to be good, and large
books can come from small snippets of time.
What’s going to be your New Year’s
Resolution?
Janis Susan May Patterson is a 7th-generation Texan and a
3rd-generation wordsmith who writes in mystery, romance, and horror. Once an
actress and a singer Janis has also been editor-in-chief of two multi-magazine
publishing groups as well as many other things, including an enthusiastic
amateur Egyptologist. Janis’ husband even proposed in a moonlit garden near the
Pyramids of Giza. Janis and her husband live in Texas with an assortment of rescued
furbabies.
6 comments:
Hi Janis,
Last New Year's Day (2012), my resolution was to block out time 5 days a week to work on my next mystery novel. By the beginning of December, it was done. This New Year's, I'm making the same resolution. Of course, being a little OCD helps!
Sandy Gardner
sgardner2@hvc.rr.com
Congratulations, Sandy! Hope you get a simply splendiferous contract on it!
Janis (Susan is my other name)
New Year's Resolutions? I prefer to look backward and create resolutions based on accomplishments. That way I am never disappointed in myself. For example, my resolution for 2012 is to get HOT ROCKS, my Beth Bowman, S FL P.I. book published. Yep, met it. Don't I feel good? :-)
Resolutions seem to be a hot topic lately. I'm thinking we really should be mindful of goals all year round, but for those who don't, like me, the New Year is a good reminder!
Morgan Mandel
http://www.morganmandel.com
Randy, I like the way you think!
Morgan, I agree that we need to keep our goals in mind all year long (hence the blizzard of Post-Its on my bulletin board) but sometimes it's good to get a kick in the pants. Maybe we should start doing quarterly resolutions...?
Thanks to you both for commenting!
Janis, AKA Susan
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