Well, I didn’t do much of anything today to start out the new year on the wrong foot. But I haven’t broken any New Year’s resolutions either. Of course, the whole trick is not to make any resolutions at all.
Last year, I said that I would write a Blog entry each and every day of the year. Well, gentle reader, if you’ve been reading all along, you may have noticed some exceptionally long gaps between blog entries.
Sometimes I get too involved with my life that I forget about everything else. So, this year, I won’t promise anything, but now that I have adjusted to retirement, I will write more regularly. And I will work on my website some more. I really must organize it and put some actual content in there.
Well, I’ve been thinking about all my lifelong goals and how I haven’t completed most of them. There are so many things I have yet to do. I’ve started so many things that I’ve forgotten to go back to them to finish them. I’ve started writing several novels but haven’t gotten past the opening lines. I have already finished a comedy play. Of course, I’ve been working on it for 25 years now. However, I’m almost done editing it. Really! I have about eighty pages and it’s almost done. Any day now!
But I have a lot of other things that I haven’t finished either. I have a utility sink in the basement that I probably won’t install before I sell the house. I have a set of French books so I can learn French someday. Ditto for the Italian and Latin books. I have an unopened jigsaw puzzle of the John Hancock building when it was the world’s tallest building. I’m almost done with my website that I started four years ago. NOT!
Since my retirement, I’ve been trying to re-create a lot of things from my previous lives. That is, things I had prior to my marriage and children, things that I had to sacrifice for the sake of being a good husband and father.
Now, I can regress a little and so I am trying to recreate my writer’s garret. Back in 1981 BC (Before Children), I had a nice little apartment all to myself that served me well for all my writing purposes. I wrote a lot back then, but nothing incredibly significant like the Great American Novel or the Declaration of Independence. However, I did get published in some local publications. Even though these bylines impressed only me, I was proud of my writing and myself for achieving another one of my personal goals. Furthermore, I also earned enough money to say I was a paid, published writer, even if it wasn’t enough to earn a living. But I was in my glory as an aspiring writer!
So now, in my retirement, I’m trying to write again. To finish the play that I started 25 years ago and have been finishing for the last nine; to start the novel I’ve been meaning to write since I was in grade school but never actually started writing; and just to write everyday just to be able to say that I am a proficient writer. (Only real writers know how to use semicolons!)
To that end, I realized that I need my very own writer’s garret where I can feel comfortable expressing my most inner thoughts as a writer. I decided that I must create this writer’s space where I can agonize over the mot just and play the long-suffering writer who lives under squalid conditions that will induce great literature. I need a place where I may rendezvous with my muse, but she better bring some help because she’s really going to need a lot of reinforcements with me.
And so, I have been constructing my writer’s garret. Only, I’m not too much for playing up the suffering part. I’d rather focus on the creature comforts now, especially now during these warm summer months. Therefore, my “writer’s garret” is air-conditioned and has a ceiling fan. How am I supposed to author the Great American Novel if I’m hot and sweaty? Would you like to read a hot, sweaty novel? Plus, I need music to inspire me. Ergo, I have a high-fidelity sound system in my garret, along with a cordless phone, a fax machine, Internet radio, and a television.
Don’t laugh! So far, it’s working. What you just read is a product of my writer’s garret!
I was looking deeply and thoughtfully into my soul since the start of 2007, and I have found my New Year’s resolution.
I have finally decided that my New Year’s resolution will be to write a blog entry for each and every day of 2007. Yep, that’s right. I will write 365 blog entries for 2007. I will write one daily, all year long.
What’s that you say? Oh, I know that it’s already January 14 and this is only the first entry. Okay, I was busy with the start of the New Year. Do you think it’s easy knowing that I must write a blog entry each and every day? I’m only human; I feel the pressure and buckle under it.
However, I have figured out what I need to do. I have to read less and write more. I can pass the entire day reading and reading, in order to avoid writing anything. I have convinced myself that reading is an effective way to warm up my brain so that I start writing. The only problem is that no matter what I read, I always discover at least three other texts that I ABSOLUTELY MUST READ!
So, Gentle Reader, that is why I wrote my first 2007 blog entry just today. But you do have to admit that I do have lofty goals! I do resolve to write more entries this year than last. Watch. You’ll see!
Chicago USA 