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Monday, December 26, 2005

Resolutions and Revolutions

I have such a bad history with resolutions that I'm considering making some very easy ones just so that I learn how it feels to be successful at them.

The first one I considered was: Breathe.

Okay, I resolve this year to breathe regularly and well.

EXCEPT.

I have such a bad history with resolutions that resolving to breathe seems an unnecessary tempting of fate.

Last year I think I made only one, and it was a fun one, and something I anticipated with great enthusiasm. I bought a Moleskine so that I could be one of the cool kids, like Hemingway and Picasso and Diane.
Mind you, I hate writing by hand because I hold the pen funny and my fingers and joints cramp and my writing is illegible, even to me. I am not someone who keeps diaries or any kind of written records much (except for BUSINESS RECORDS if anyone from the IRS is reading and gets any wild audit-ideas). So I have nothing to write IN a Moleskine.

But then I got this absolutely great idea! I decided I was going to use it for a book/movie journal. List every book I read, or listened to*, or movie I watched, for the entire year. Maybe with thoughts/comments. Maybe just a list.

I can't tell you how excited I was to have finally found something I might actually follow through on.

Well, you may think you know where this is going. And you would be wrong. Sort of.

It's not that I forgot to list stuff. It's not that I didn't bother.

It's that I got hired onto a writing project that swallowed up all of my time for weeks, and then those weeks were followed by minor-but-annoying illness, and then our trip to the UK --

I am thinking there was never a 3-month period in my entire life (well, since I was 6, anyway) where I didn't read a single book, or see a single movie. THIS is what making a resolution does to my life!

My Moleskine gathered dust. I'd started it proudly on Jan 1 with the notation that I was reading Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell and when we went to the UK in March I was STILL READING IT.

I eventually started reading and watching movies again, but by then who the hell knows where the Moleskine is? (sigh)

You see why I was worried about the "I resolve to breathe" thing, right?

But somehow, I still feel the desire.

So I will ponder them. I will think of something. Hey, clearly failure doesn't deter me! There's something good in that, isn't there?

In the meantime I am making one resolution for today.

Today I resolve to fill one black trash bag with "stuff that needs to leave this house" and make it, um, leave the house.

Tune in tomorrow to see if a one-day resolution will defeat me, as well.



* Audible rocks. Tell 'em dallaspooks sent you.

4 Comments:

At 9:54 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I love those Moleskine notebooks, but I keep saving them for when I write something important or whatever, so I have more saved than I have filled. I put this down to writer psychosis. Notebooks and pens. And pencils. The dirty dogs quit making my favorite pencil.

Anyway, did you know, there is a STORYBOARD Moleskine, in case you wanted to take your Save The Cat board with you wherever you go?

http://www.moleskineus.com/storybook.html

Way cool.

 
At 11:05 AM, Blogger Patricia Burroughs aka Pooks said...

Wait -- you mean the notecards? Wow, I've got to check that out. That's amazing.

Are you a screenwriter, too?

 
At 9:01 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yes - I guess you can say that. I've had some luck with the smaller contests and have developed a list of people who will read my next one based on what they've read and passed on already. (sigh)

I've been on Zoetrope and in the SAVE THE CAT workshop there. I'm trying to break the Zoe habit. Some days I have better luck with that than others.

 
At 6:42 PM, Blogger Patricia Burroughs aka Pooks said...

Oh! I know you from Zoe! Hi! (waving)

I ordered the moleskine to see what it's like. You won't get the four-rows-of-cards system, but it still might be useful.

 

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