New Year, New Opportunities

In the past I've been awful about keeping my New Year's resolutions. I suspect it had something to do with their unrealistic nature. Things like "lose 5 pounds" sound achievable until you examine the context:

Lose Five Pounds (while still eating what I want and exercising just a little and assuming that really wanting it will overcome genetics and eliminate my cellulite and cankles to leave me with a body like Janet Jackson [pre her recent bloating]).

After several years of that type of ridiculousness, I gave up completely on the resolution thing. Doesn't work, sets you up for disappointment, worse off than you started, etc.

Until I found something I really wanted to achieve. Something I was actually willing to work for, even with some amount of sacrifice.

At the beginning of 2004, I resolved to write a story a month. I made this resolution to my writing group (so they'd help keep me honest), and to myself, because how else was I going to determine whether or not I could cut it? Whether this was the right thing to do and how I handled facing the screen when uninspired or empty of ideas?

I ended the year with 10 new stories, a couple of essays, and a couple of articles. As I finished stories I sent them out for publication. When they got rejected, I sent them out again. And again. And again. I set up a database to track my submissions. The "no's" didn't matter; I was doing it, and I was having fun, and in most cases, I was getting feedback that I could use to make my writing better.

Last year that persistence paid off. My stories were being published, I was writing stories that were not being rejected (don't get me wrong, I still faced "no's" last year), and I was feeling that urge that one of the former members of my writing group had told me about a couple of years ago. That urge that hits that makes you turn off the TV or put down a book or turn down a social invitation because you need to write.

I had finally arrived.

But toward the end of the year I was getting lazy. Holidays, sure. But I had set up a plan for myself that was overly ambitious and so when I found myself failing I just ignore it completely. The ideas keep coming and drabs of writing made their way onto my computer, but not with the same motivating force of two years ago.

In the fall I took a screenwriting class to see if it was something I might be interested in. More accurately, I wanted to see if it was something I could do. Was it possible for me to take a story from my head and put it down on paper as barebones as possible, for someone else to take up and apply his/her vision to it?

I found that I could do it. It was fun. A diversion from setting up a world with words. Not better, just different. And in a recent conversation with a friend about priorities and doing the day job, I came to a decision. I wanted to do as much as possible when it came to writing, and I needed to do it now. I needed to get off my ass and finish the short story collection manuscript, and I needed to get off my ass and finish the screenplay I've started to submit for the Disney fellowship I've followed for three years but never made a move toward.

Resolutions? Yes. Achievable? Certainly. But now it's all up to me--there's no writing group supporting me in my madness. There are the expectations of others, sure. But if I fail to produce, there's always the next thing for them to focus on. For me, there's nothing else. And I live with that for the rest of my life.

Now's the time. Get ready for the ride..