Irresolute

Here we are again: another New Year’s Eve, another wiping of the slate, another fresh start. Well, guess what? Not this time. The world didn’t end back on the 21st, but I’m done anyway. My resolution this year is, no resolutions.

You heard me. Last year I made a number of resolutions. Some even lasted longer than the time it took me to type them. All of them were pretty much shot by the end of January. I understand this is normal for most Americans. However, I’m sick of my personal failure rate. For me, 2013 is the Year of the Screw It.

I was going to clean up the clutter in the house. Didn’t happen. I was going to double my backlist and hopefully pick up more sales. I came the closest on that one. I had two releases, an end-of-year acceptance, and a sub I’m still waiting to hear back on. Sadly, my sales didn’t climb as expected. In fact, I think they went down. Over in another genre, a story I had accepted to an anthology finally came out this month, and I finally got paid. The grand pay-off after a two-year wait: $85, with no royalties even if the book does well. It was a flat-fee deal. Merry flippin’ Christmas, fellow writers.

Let’s not discuss my annual vow to shuck a few pounds. The less said about that, the better.

That’s not to say I have no plans at all for the upcoming 365 days. I’m just not making any promises. If I don’t make promises, I can’t break them. I love how that works out. Therefore, my guilt-free, subject-to-change intentions for the year 2013 include:

* Earn some spending money from writing. Some people can actually earn a living from this, but they write a lot faster than I do, and have more books on the market. That means I’ll have to write faster too, and stop with the screwing around. Related sub-intention: cut back on the time spent watching TV. Maybe I’ll take some of that money and get myself a DVR, or get the VCR portion of my DVD/VCR player fixed so I can tape stuff and watch it after I finish writing. I’m going to have to write and sub something every blasted week if I want to pull this off. Hope my fingers hold out.

* Eat better. That’s a toughie. Fruit I’m okay with, but I just don’t like the taste of most vegetables. Guess I’ll be experimenting with veggies over the next year. I didn’t know I liked asparagus until I tried it. I do know I can’t stand tomatoes or tomato juice, even though I love pizza and spaghetti sauce. Go figure. I don’t think I’ve ever had squash. Maybe I’ll give some form of that a try. Related sub-intention: learn to cook.

* Exercise more. I spend too much time parked on my butt in front of some sort of screen. I’m starting to look like the ship people in WALL-E. There are plenty of malls and big stores around here to hike up and down the aisles in, so I can’t use bad weather or temperature extremes as an excuse any more. If I eat more veggies and move around, it’s bound to do my body some good. Note how adroitly I avoided the “lose weight” resolution. Damn, I’m good.

There are other things I’d like to accomplish, like clean out the Book Room and keep the tub clean, but those are good for starters. Since I’m not making resolutions, I don’t have to front-load January. I can add and subtract “intentions” throughout the year, or replace one that isn’t working with something else.

For instance, suppose my next book takes off like a shot and earns me a million dollars. I can pretty much strike my first plan off the list and replace it with “Move somewhere that has a beach I can sit on and tan while I write. Oh, and doesn’t have so many hills so I can ride my bike.” Whoa, got me a twofer. I like this idea.

Resolutions suck. Screw ‘em. With this new plan I’m not breaking resolutions, I’m course-correcting and dropping plans of action that aren’t working out. Better add another: Practice making guilt-free excuses. Check. Happy New Year!