A WERy Good Year

Inspiration from my local muse, So G Coffee Roasters

Chances are you’ve spent the last month (or longer) creating holiday magic for the loved ones in your life. Shopping and wrapping and pursuing thoughtfulness like a squirrel gathering nuts for the long winter. (What is THE perfect gift for that teacher who spends seven hours a day with your kid or the stylist who listens to you chime endlessly about your oval shaped face?)

But, now, IT’S OVER! And if you ask me, this is the most wonderful time of the year. 

Sure it’s cold and grey and Mother Nature is prone to dumping loads of white icy stuff on short notice. But, I love this low expectation gap in the calendar. After all the decking of halls, and before the summer camp brochures flood the mailbox and evenings turn sunny. 

Yep, it’s new beginnings, resolution time. And this year I’ve decided: I’m out. 

Not going to play the usual game of resolving to lose the same ten pounds (that I’ve lost and gained back four times already). Or, to become an organizational ninja in an effort to streamline my gloriously crazy and crammed life.

Instead, I’ve decided to declare a personal wish list of what I will do, because I want to. 

Here goes:

I will WRITE every day. I pretty much do this now, but, this year I want MORE quality writing time. And so, I’m structuring my days with this in mind. I’m saying goodbye to a long-term venture in order to allow time to achieve my goals. I am nervous and excited. Like a little kid on Christmas Eve.

Next, I wish to EXERCISE often because running makes me feel good and fuels the aforementioned writing (not to mention general sanity). But, perhaps the most important reason I will exercise most days? Wine and cheese are two of my favorite food groups.

Finally, I am going to READ, really read. I think Stephen King put it best in his primer On Writing. “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.”

To date, I’ve mostly viewed reading as a leisure activity awarded when laundry, dishes, writing and running are done. Consequently it happens late at night when I can digest about a page and a half before falling into deep slumber only to wake having retained a mere whiff of what I read the night before. But this year reading will be done in primetime (feels so decadent to even write that!), when I’m awake and alert and ready to bask in the jubilation of other writers who’ve cracked the code.

Okay, so that’s my plan for a WERy good year. My official New Year wish list. 

What’s yours?