Thursday, January 1, 2009

This is a no-brainer

New year resolutions aren't my favorite gimmick, but today an imperative decree for 2009 is, well, decreeing itself to me.

Write!

Yes, I've managed to spend what was to have been a productive week and a half off work, what were to have been 12 days of solid writing, what was to have launched me back into a good creative groove--to spend it instead zoned out with the flu and its aftermath, lying around, reading a bit but mostly simply existing on the lowest possible level, I'm talking the Lifetime channel and HGTV and "Entertainment Tonight." This is frustrating. This is also motivating. This must be the end of a fallow period that went on for far too long, occasioned by a series of minor but intrusive bodily troubles since the end of the summer. So OK now. It's a new year now. It's time to get going now.

Twelve days of writing would have launched me forward into a natural, self-sustaining rhythm. But since it was not to be I'm going to do something unnatural, artificial: resolve. And so I do. My new year's resolution is to write two to three days a week after work and both days every weekend, from this point forward.

I'm looking at you, eight to 10 unfinished stories. I'm looking at you, new novel waiting to be written past page 65.

I need to get my body in shape too. Exactly like Oprah, who is exactly my age (um, did I mention I've done nothing but watch TV for the last week? ask me anything about Hollywood, I'm your answer gal), I got down to just the right weight a while ago only to pile 40 pounds back on. The fat makes me sluggish. Sluggishness obstructs writing. Obstructions to writing must be removed.

On with it.