My New Year (writing) resolutions

The end of the year is like the end of a book. It may be happy, it may be sad. It may be bittersweet, it may leave you thinking, what happens next? The story that is finished may have been what you'd hoped, or it may have disappointed you. It may leave you hopeful, as it may leave wishing you could have changed so many things.

The last day of the year, like the ending of a book, is the opportunity to pause and think. About what will happen next, or what you want to happen next. It is the opportunity to daydream and imagine. For all is possible in the future. What book will you next read? What turn will your life take? What will your next adventure be?

It is the moment to take resolutions. Why, actually, since barely are ever kept? Because it gives the illusion that we can decide the shape of all the possible futures lying ahead.

I have a few resolutions for 2019, writing ones. Maybe I will keep them, and maybe not. But still I make them. It is like when I think of the outline of my stories: how different the finished novel is to the initial idea. It was changed and transformed. It veered away from the path I thought it would follow. Is it because it could not be otherwise? Is it better that way? I cannot tell. My stories changed as I do, day after day, as we all do. Our hopes, our dreams, the shape of all the possible futures.

But still I make resolution, just as a create an outline. To be followed or not followed. For outlines, like New Year resolutions are a starting point. So here they are:

*I want to finish the first draft of the sequel of As Winter Came and Went before the summer, and start the second draft then (earlier if possible).

*I want to have written at least half of the first draft of Cinnamon.

*I have two, non-fiction projects, one related to As Winter Came and Went, another to the cartoons I've been publishing on this blog. I want to complete and publish at least one of them in 2019.

*I want to engage more with the Internet writing community, for I feel it has given me more than I have given it. I did not have the time to comment, to encourage, to support as much as I should the different writers I virtually met there, but so many took the time to do this for me that now I want to return the favour.

*I'd like to practice writing short stories and maybe publish a couple on this blog. I intended to do so around Christmas, but I lacked time and ideas. Or rather I did not make time for it, and did not really look for ideas. It would be the opportunity to try out more genres and develop my writing skills.

The end of the year is like the end of a book. There is no way of knowing what will happen next. But you can write parts of the story, of the story that comes next, the one you want to read, the one you want to live.