My New Year's Resolution

I will write next year.

I will take, at a minimum, fifteen minutes every day to write. Not at work, not while watching Oliver, not while watching tv. I am going to isolate myself and write for at least fifteen minutes every day.

The wisdom I've always heard is that if you want to be a writer, write. If you don't write, you can't call yourself a writer. I haven't been taking that seriously.

I wrote sporadically. I do it when I think of it. Sometimes, inspiration hits me. Or sometimes, there's a news story that I can't resist commenting on. But it's not a habit anymore. It hasn't been for a while.

I write, sure. I write tweets. I write on Facebook. I write as part of my job, which I love. But posts - long, prosaic, thoughtful posts - I haven't been doing this kind of writing very much this year.

I need to get back into fiction writing again, too. I have a novel in my basement that I started writing in college, in 1991. I think of the characters often. After 9/11, I thought I had the inspiration to start writing again, but it never lasted.

But I'm not going to set goals of finishing the novel, or x number of posts per month, or x amount of short stories. 15 minutes a day. That's the goal. That is the resolution.

10 New Year's Resolutions I Will Not Be Making

1. Give up caffeine.
2. Begin using "sock it to me!" as my new catchphrase.
3. Give Glenn Beck the benefit of the doubt.
4. Master the Moog synthesizer.
5. Find out what this Brazilian wax thing is all about.
6. Get that eyebrow piercing I've always wanted.
7. Launch a rave club in my basement.
8. Find out if I really need to shower more than once a week.
9. Launch a Tumblr blog, because Blogger is so totally 2005.
10. Shave all the hair off my body and begin dressing in black suits and hats.

Brace Yourselves

I don't know if I can do this, but I've been given a challenge.

The charming and witty Adria Richards is holding a contest for bloggers. The challenge: write 25 blog posts in 24 hours.

There are prizes and stuff, but really, the contest is about getting busy. Too often, I-and most bloggers I know-have lots of ideas floating in our heads that we never write down. With Facebook, Twitter, instant messaging, chatroulette, etc., we've lost that instinct to take our ideas immediately from inspiration to blog post. I want that spark back. Thanks, Adria, for a clever way to reactivate the blog.

If I get stuck, I see Adria is keeping a running list of her own blog post ideas. I might steal some of those. We'll see how quickly the well runs dry. (Although I don't do the work she does, and I'm not nearly the social media butterfly she is, so maybe that idea won't help.)

It's already 7:19, so I've missed a few hours. (Darn sleep.) One down, 24 to do. Yikes.