Everyone asks what your plans are for New Year's Eve, it's polite conversation for people to make at the checkout in the grocery store. But to me it's not polite, it's annoying. I'll tell you why.
This time around, it was 2013 for about seven minutes before I realized it was 2013. And I missed the famed countdown, (on my TV at home), because I was doing dishes.
Yup.
New Year's Eve isn't a big deal around my house. Some people say Valentine's Day is a just a trumped-up holiday created by Hallmark, (and I agree, to an extent,) but it's nothing compared to the over-inflated, over-the-top hubbub around New Year's Eve. I see it kind of like a good Catholic might view Mardi Gras: one last hurrah before you have to start behaving.
People use the start of a new year to make all kinds of promises to themselves about their future behavior. I was real tempted to make all kinds of rash promises to myself about when I'll have revisions done, and when I'll start querying. And I may sit down tomorrow and come up with some deadlines for myself.
But I sure as shootin' won't call them "resolutions." Resolutions wear off. Conviction to a resolution will wane, and by February the majority of people have given up. (Just for fun, see how packed the nearest gym to your home is for the next week. Check again the first week of February.)
A deadline is something serious. A deadline can't be missed, or there will be consequences. Now, since I don't really have a job as a writer the consequences are self-imposed, but they're still there. No celebratory Starbucks coffee is a bummer, and driving by the coffee shop when I pick up my son from school is a reminder to me: Get this done, or no white chocolate mocha for you!
I won't make resolutions, I'll set deadlines for 2013. Deadlines have teeth, and if something with teeth is bearing down on you, you move your butt.
Happy New Year, and may 2013 be productive!
