Happy New Year!

On this, the last day of 2013, I would like to take a moment to wish all of you a very happy and healthy 2014!

Since I copped out on writing a real blog post last week, I thought I’d give you all a thrill today by sharing some of my New Year’s resolutions with everyone.  My immediate family is sick of hearing about them, so I’m inflicting them on a whole different group of people.

First, I want to improve my writing.  It is said that practice makes perfect, but is there such a thing as perfect writing?  I don’t believe there is.  I believe that practice makes better, so I’m going to get more practice.  My second novel is due to the publisher on June 1st, so I know I’ll be writing and revising until then.  I have some ideas rattling around in my head for my third novel, so I’m hoping to start it right after the manuscript gets sent off to my editor on June 1st.  And after that?  Who knows?  Maybe I’ll even try my hand at NaNoWriMo in November.  The important thing for me is to keep writing and keep improving.

Second, I want to get better at using social media.  I want to Tweet more often.  And I want to update my Facebook status more often.

Third, I want to take more pictures.  Pictures of people, of things, of places.  Posed pictures and candid pictures.  And I want to print them out and put them in albums that my kids can hold in their hands and peruse.  We took so many pictures when the kids were small, but we’ve slacked off as they’ve gotten older.  And those we have taken remain on camera cards or phones or the computer.  We love to look through the old albums, and I’d love to have more of those.

Fourth, I’m going to replace the closet doors in each of my children’s rooms.  They’ve been off their hinges for two years now, and that’s just embarrassing.

Fifth, I want to clean out the attic and the garage.  If you haven’t seen my attic or my garage, consider yourself lucky.  I could work on nothing but those two spaces all year and probably not finish them, so I’ll be happy if I just make some visible headway.

Finally, I want to run a 5K.  I am not a runner, but I’d like to give it a try.  I have one in mind, and if I actually sign up I’ll let you know how it goes.

Next year at this time, I’ll let you know how I did with my resolutions.  While I hope to accomplish everything on my list and many more things I didn’t mention here, I guess my main objective is to, at the very least, make some progress toward each of my goals.  And if I think of a new resolution before the end of 2014 (I can guarantee I will), I’ll try to implement it right away and not wait until a new year begins to make changes.  Do you have any resolutions for 2014?  Care to share them?

Until next week,

Amy