by Stephanie Jacob Gordon

Nothing new for me for the new year. No New Year’s resolutions made and broken on January 2nd. No new projects started. No new friends made. No new furry pets adopted. Just me and Izzi, my barky significant other, and what sounds like a lot of the same old same old.

Truthfully, I haven’t made a New Year’s resolution in over 50 years. Mainly because I have never kept any I did make. That’s right…none. I haven’t started any new projects because I haven’t finished the ones from 2018, and it’s winter. I haven’t made any new friends because I am still happy with all my old friends, and it’s winter. Who goes out in a real Northwestern winter with rain storms and gale winds and impending snow avalanches to buy project stuff and make friends? Ok, I exaggerate, a little. It hasn’t snowed. Oh, and I haven’t adopted any new furry pets…yet!

So, what’s new? More and more all the time. New ideas. New outlooks on life. New approaches to my writing. And a new realization that there is nowhere I would rather be, and no one I would rather be, and nothing I would rather be doing. The same old same old feels pretty good to me. I say, forget resolutions. I will type 10 new pages every day. I will go to bed at nine p.m. to wake up rested and ready to write. I will walk the dog at lunch with a sandwich in one hand and a pencil and paper in the other. I will not stray from my course and turn on my Kindle Fire. I will stay at my desk until I have fulfilled every promise I have made to the Writing Gods.

Or just maybe I will stop putting a ton of pressure on my writing life and just write. Now that is a novel idea.