A beginning

It’s not often I make a New Year’s resolution. I’ve always thought that if you want to make a change in your life, why wait for the arbitrary date of January 1; why not just do it. On the other hand, I will admit that I can see how it might be difficult to quit smoking or lose during the holiday festivities, with their myriad social situations that don’t lend themselves to moderation of any kind. So I hope I don’t sound overly hypocritical when I say that this year, I have made a New Year’s resolution of my own, and this little blog post is its meagre beginnings.

I have decided that I will endeavour to write every day in 2012. There, I said it—or wrote it, rather. No excuses. Just do it. Write something every day (other than my normal bread-winning activity of translation, that is). It doesn’t matter what the form is, how long it is, or how good it is. Just get it done. I don’t promise to post everything I write here (which I’m sure is a relief to you), but I assume that at least some of my efforts will end up on this blog, so expect more regular updates on this space.

Why, you ask? I recently looked back at some of my early poetry journals and was a little stunned at how interesting the writing was. Most of it was utter crap, of course, but a lot of it was creative and blossoming with potential. The writer back then didn’t have the skills to polish those diamonds in the rough, but he certainly had a lot of enthusiasm, wasn’t afraid of showing how little he knew, and—importantly—he wrote very often. I’d like to recapture some of that youthful vigour, and I think the way to get there is through quantity rather than quality. I guess I’ll have to check back here in a year to see if I’m right or wrong. 

In the meantime, I wish you, my hypothetical reader, a very happy 2012, full of love, music and friendship.