Writing in the New Year

No doubt you have purchased a new pad or journal just for this purpose. Or perhaps you have some sort of techie device within which you input them. It doesn’t matter what tools or methods you use to plot and plan the new year, as long as you engage in this practice, right?

What practice is that, you ask?

Why, resolutions. New Year’s resolutions, to be more exact.

Have you ever pondered the various meanings of the word, “resolution”?

My trusty Oxford American Dictionary has this to say:

resolution: n. 1. the quality of being resolute, great determination. 2. a mental pledge, something one intends to do, New Year resolutions. 3. a formal statement of opinion agreed on by a committee or assembly. 4. the solving of a problem or question. 5. the process of separating something or being separated into constituent parts.

See! These New Year’s resolutions are so much a part of our culture—whether you’re a writer or not—that the context has been awarded prime time and space. (I will refrain from my usual diatribe about mediated experience. I will not say that we’re being brainwashed. No, not me…I’ll wash my own brain, thank you very much.)

Yes, a resolution, among other things, is an object. I would also argue that it’s a socio-cultural force imbued with certain natural, organic properties. It is a wind that propels us forward. It is a wave that picks us up and tosses us on the proverbial crunchy sands of a new shore. It is a…

You’re a writer, so you know these things. You realize the power of language, and of those individual words that contain so much prowess and promise that we enshrine and ritualize them. So let me ask you this: what have you resolved for this year?

Ouch! I don’t think I like the sound of that. Resolved? It feels like a sentence (pun intended) has been meted out. A consequence for actions and inactions. A you-better-take-a-deep-breath-before-you-hear-it kind of punishment with requisite cringing and oh-my-goodness-what-did-I-ever-do-to-deserve-this moment. You’re resolved to hear that bad news. You’re resolved to accept your fate. You’re so resolved, in fact, that you feel disassociated, sliced and pie-charted into those “constituent parts” cited above.

What’s that you say? You don’t believe in the Fates? Those old spinster sisters endlessly plotting your success and/or failure, toying with your life?

Me, neither!

Listen up Zeus, Hera, and all of Mount Olympus! We’re going to grab hold and wield our own thunder bolts. We’re going to spin, weave and reweave the fabric ourselves—even mix up the colors and textures, with an extra knot or two just because we can.

Yes, that’s right. We have the power to create, to bring in, or as I like to say, to “write in,” our life. We can create anything we want on the page, so why not on—or in--our own lives? We already do it, whether we acknowledge it or not. While I admit to an intimate relationship with the Muse, I don’t wait around for her to visit me. Ok, I’m not jealous, really I’m not, but I assume, quite rightly, that I’m not the only one she’s in relationship with. She’s visiting you and you and you and you…Come on—admit it! Unless she clones herself, or has the power to appear in multiple locations simultaneously, then she leaves us alone quite frequently.

But that’s ok, right? After all, we can invoke the idea of her presence with just a thought. Since thoughts have the power to shape reality, when placed on the page, the process continues. Focus on those words and they expand in all directions.

Now you’re co-creating the multiverse--why make resolutions when you can do that?!

Seriously, though, if time expands in all directions, then it can retract to a single point in time, a moment. That moment is N-o-w.

Come on fellow word-wielders…boot up that brain and get writing!

Terrie Leigh Relf lives in San Diego, CA. If you’re looking for a writing coach, or a Muse-by-Proxy, she’s available both on and off-line.