In 2024, I Resolve To . . .

By Margaret Lucke

Here we are—halfway through January. Have you broken your New Year’s resolutions yet?

I recently came across this definition:

New Year’s resolutions = a to-do list for the first week of January

Maybe it’s true that most resolutions don’t last. In fact, a lot of people claim not to make them at all. But I sort of enjoy the annual ritual. If you’re like me, this is the year you’ve resolved to do things right—to break all your bad habits, finish all the projects you’ve been procrastinating on, and become that all-around perfect person you know you have it within you to be.

Most of my resolutions have to do with writing. It’s the same list I made last year, and the year before, and, well, probably every year since 2010.

 Resolution Number 1: I will brush up on grammar.

Here are the rest of them:

2:  I will write every day.
(Okay, let’s be realistic here—I will write every week. Would you believe every month?)

3.  I will study the markets and never submit anything that is not tailored precisely to its intended home.
(I will also learn to read editors’ minds as well as their guidelines.)

4.  I will write about what I know.
(Hey, that puts me back to writing only once or twice during the whole year!)

5.  I will not try to second-guess market trends but will write only what speaks to my heart.
(Wait a minute—does anyone else detect a contradiction here? See Number Three.)

6.  I will keep pen and paper handy so that I can jot down ideas as they come to me.
(Especially those ideas that are so huge, so fabulous and solve so many plot problems that I could not possibly ever, ever forget them—until the next time I’m at my desk, when I will remember that I had this idea that was so huge, so fabulous … but I will have absolutely no recollection of what it was.)

7.  I will get organized.
(I’ve got a head start on this one. For New Year’s 2022 I bought myself a box of file folders. As soon as I find it, I’ll be all set to go.)

8.  I will eat right and exercise so that I will be in excellent shape for producing excellent work.
(That is, I will follow the Writer’s Diet Plan. It has been scientifically established that creativity is stimulated by the four basic food groups: caffeine, chocolate, wine, and nacho chips. And if getting up to refill your mug isn’t exercise, I don’t know what is.)

9.  I will quit procrastinating.
(Well, maybe I ought to wait until 2025 before committing myself to that one.)

10.  I will persevere, because writers with perseverance and no talent are more likely to succeed than writers with talent and no perseverance.
(All the books say so. Of course, it would be nice to have perseverance and talent both. Not to mention luck.)

11.  I will follow all the good advice I receive about my writing and ignore all the bad advice.
(And I will suddenly be blessed with the perspicacity to know which is which.)

12.  I will double-space my manuscripts when I submit them.
(Hey, I had to throw in one resolution that I might actually keep.)

So there you are—help yourself. Learn these lessons well, and let me know the minute these little gems make you rich and famous. And have a wonderful 2024!