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So Long, 2005December 31, 2005 I don't do New Year's resolutions for pretty much the same reason I don't do diets and other "self-improvement" schemes: they smack of sackcloth and ashes, hairshirts, and more literal forms of self-flagellation. A few years ago, though, on the cusp of 2001, I looked at the growing pile of paper on my floor and realized that I was well on the way to doing the thing I was sure I couldn't do: finishing my first novel. If my panicky subconscious was planning to screw things up, 2001 would have to be the year. So I made -- not a resolution, exactly, but a vow, or a promise: I would work on the novel every single day till I had a complete draft. Note that I didn't say "I will write X number of hours" or "I will write X number of words, or Y number of pages." Just "I will work on the novel every day till this draft is done." Some days I got up and like a good do-bee worked for two or three hours in the morning. Other days I'd avoid writing all day and long into the night, till around 11:45 p.m. Then the desperate do-bee would drag the panicky subconscious to the desk, cajoling a mile a minute: "Call up the file. You don't have to write a whole paragraph, or even a whole sentence; all you have to do is fiddle with a few words." The panicky subconscious would then see that the story had not turned to unrecoverable sludge since the previous day and would kick into gear: "That transition is awfully contrived; try this instead" -- and off we'd go. I did take a couple of days off in June: I turned 50 that year and threw myself a big party. Later that summer I got kicked out of the rental I'd lived in for almost 10 years; I'm pretty sure I missed a few days house-hunting and the moving. But by November The Mud of the Place was done enough to circulate among friends and acquaintances. Thanks to them, by the following August Mud was 50 pages shorter and a helluva lot stronger than Complete Draft #1. It's a Vineyard novel in more ways than one: I started it in one rental, completed a first draft in another, then finished it in yet another -- the same place I'm living now, and hope to be living when I sell it . . . This afternoon Rhodry, Allie, and I took our last trail ride of the old year and got home after dark. Ginny and Jim were back from nearly a week's taking care of family business off-island; they'd brought back Chinese from the mainland, so I stayed for supper and a couple of beers. Heading home, I remembered I needed milk so I drove all the way down Skiff Ave. toward Cumby's. The Last Night / First Day fireworks were bursting over the Beach Road and Vineyard Haven harbor. 2006 is going to be a good year: I have this feeling.
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