Kage Baker advised that resolutions should be enacted as soon as possible following New Year’s. The idea was to get some momentum under way before your body or soul noticed the renovations in hand, and had a chance to rebel.

She also advised on only adopting reasonable resolutions. Fine, resolve to lose weight – but don’t set yourself a crazy goal, like 50 pounds in 5 weeks. You won’t learn Swahili in 6 months, but you can certainly start the primer. Can’t save much money? Give up on the folding green for a while and just put your change in a jar ever night – you’ll at least save something.

Try to write  2,000 words a day, but be happy with some lower limit as well; 1,000 words in a day is nothing to sneer at. Many writers would give generous liens on their souls to manage 500 words per day, if they could be guaranteed of that many on a regular basis.

The one resolution on which Kage never compromised was the Big One: To Survive another year. It’s the only one she ever really broke, too. But she made me promise to keep to it regardless, and not to burden myself with too many huge and impractical side issues. As she well knew, I seldom made it through a Lent without cheating on the chocolate I’d given up …

My life pretty much fell apart in 2015. All sorts of practical and sensible habits went up in flames. I spent far too much time as a sort of intellectual blanc mange, feeling sorry for myself. Days on end were spent rolled up in a ball, and I need to get moving again. Though, as Kage would advise, I’m trying for the big obvious things first. Doing the laundry. Registering the car. Washing my hair.

I’ve obediently checked on my jury duty, as a start on a good new year. They don’t want me yet, which is fine with me; but I know the Recording Angel downtown is aware of my virtuous behaviour and will keep her Furies in check another day and night. I’ll probably get called in just as the storm we are expecting any moment now settles down to drown the city …

Anyway, I’m trying to tidy up in distinct ways every day. Clear a pile of correspondence. File away a stack of paperwork. Knit while I sit  on the couch with the family of an evening. Write something every day. Keep the blog up to date.

Which is why I am sitting here writing now, one eye on the clocks. One says 11:30, once says quarter to 12, and one says 5:40 – unless I’m mis-reading it, and it’s actually telling me it’s 54 degrees outside … it’s dim here at my desk. The main thing is, if I get this posted before it’s midnight and the day becomes another one, I’ll be hitting my mark.

So it’s brief and simple tonight, Dear Readers. However, I worked up all sorts of plot ideas while I was knitting this evening, and those will get worked on later and tomorrow. I’ll have a nice shiny new target to aim at then.

We take – and give – what we can, right? It’s the best any of us can do.