Happy New Year!

January.  The start of the year, the middle of winter.  It’s so dark all the time!  But little by little the days will get longer (if not warmer for at least another two months!) and we may even catch a glimpse of that fabled orb of fire in the sky.

For now, it’s the time of year to make a promise to yourself about what you want to achieve in the year ahead… what you are going to do with those long and sunny days of summer.  (Yes, I am hoping!)

I thought a lot about what resolution I was going to make this year.  “Be healthy” is something I always try to do anyway, so it’s not much of a resolution to carry on doing what you were already trying to do.  “Go to the gym” may as well read as “bore and torture yourself” to me.  I wouldn’t go, and even if in some alternative universe I did, I wouldn’t enjoy it.  Besides, I already go swimming, which is much more fun!

I could have gone with work related ones; “get the novel finished by this date” or “write at least two novels this year and have them published.”  But I think that would just be unrealistic pressure.  The stories are coming along, but if I go along the traditional publishing route, it would be out of my control by what date they would be published.  Also I want to make sure the story is good enough; not just rush it for the sake of it.  (Although I really do want to get it done sooner rather than later, I know my handful of fans are waiting to read it!)

In the end, the resolution I went with was: “Try not to worry so much.”

I am a chronic worrier.  I have days when I worry that my story writing is terrible.  I have days when I worry I will never finish the novel, or when I do finish it and have it published, that no one will read it.  I worry when I travel that I’ve forgotten to take something with me, or sometimes when friends and family travel I worry that I’m not there to look after them.

Some days my imagination runs away with me, and I worry about the zombie apocalypse, and if I have reviewed my survival plan recently for any changes in circumstances.   (You don’t want to enact it to find out that the camping shop you planned to raid to get your supplies shut down months ago…)

So far, I’m not doing too badly.  I’ve found that letting go about worrying about the future is making me more productive in the present.  Instead of worrying about no one reading my book, I’m getting up and just thinking of the day ahead.

I do have lapses, where I spiral off into “what if it all goes wrong” day dream of scary and probably unrealistic events.  But overall, I’m not doing too badly, and that in itself has made me feel better about it, because I’m not worrying about what I should have got done today instead of worrying.  Of course, it’s only January, and everyone sticks to their resolutions in January.  So can I keep it up, come the spring?  I’m not sure, but for now, I’m not going to worry about it.