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I am on a train somewhere around the Scottish Borders and am mainly posting because I can. (Well, it's nine thirty in the morning, I am, astonishingly, awake, and there is an astonishing view of the North Sea to go with it. Having left Edinburgh chilly and covered with scraps and scars of white, and run through the station going "omg!" (me) and swearing loudly (not me) at the inevitability of "Cancelled" next to the relevant train on the electronic boards, we are actually on a train half an hour earlier than the one planned, due to a combination of on-feet thinking and dumb luck. Now, the frost is slowly steaming off the landscape and there are layers of diffuse cloud above the sunrise, which make for a strangely optimistic morning vista.
Speaking of optimism, tomorrow, I am told, is New Year's Eve. (I have a wonderfully non-committal approach to the passage of time at the moment; I think for the first time in years I may actually have been on holiday.) And I was going to write about this year's resolutions, because I was definitely going to make them for once, and there seems to be something thematically appropriate about skimming over a sunlit landscape. (And, my god, the sea just appeared, complete with crags and mist and rising cloud.)
So. In 2009, I resolve to:
1. Write more. I don't mean write more worthy things, I don't mean write more self-consciously bloggish posts, and I definitely don't mean original fiction, although those are all good things. I'm going to write fanfiction, and bad porn, and endless musings on why Arthur and Merlin are so gay for each other and why Remus Lupin was Hard Done By. And it doesn't really matter about making myself a better writer, because ultimately you only become one if you write, and it doesn't even matter about finishing things or even making an enormous success of them, because a) you can't resolve to do that without setting yourself up for failure and b) writing is hard. I only just realised this recently. Writing is where you take the blank page (which, lest we forget, is not your mother; it is not your friend or lover, it does not care if you have a bad day or feel a bit sick or are on the happy pills) and knock it through to a crawlspace below, full of wonderful things (or Arthur and Merlin being gay for each other, whatever.) It is creating a world from cloth. No wonder it's hard, is all I have to say.
And, well, I kind of love it. Not writing, it seems, is harder than writing - for all the joyous grief the latter causes me. So I resolve to write more, to not not do the thing that keeps me happiest and mentally healthiest.
2. Dance more. This is metaphorical, sort of, although more flailing madly while dressed in black ruffly dresses is probably involved. I am not, you see, the sort of person who stays at home a lot. I don't like staying in very much. I like dancing; I like sitting in coffee-shops reading; I like giving my time to Amicus and Amnesty International, I like casework and letter writing, for themselves, a little, and for the satisfaction they engender. This is, I suppose, a twin resolution - not to sit at home as though that's what I do (which I don't, and why I said over and over that being depressed is vile and inglorious and painful but mostly really really dull) and not to be an armchair activist. Blogging is fun but you ought to do it about something.
3. Wear more dresses. Again, metaphorical, but simpler. Wear clothes I like. Throw out the ones I don't like. Wear glitter and sequins when I want to, and get things pierced when I want to, and not wear heels because I don't want to. (My Christmas present from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
shimgray was a piece of resinous amber on a silver chain - it's simple, and very lovely, and yes, that. Small things make me happy and I think this should be endorsed.
4. Read more. This is the resolution that's already in full swing, and already paying off. In the last few days I have read Kitchen, The Tales of Beedle the Bard, some of Naomi Wolf's The Beauty Myth, Firewatch, and I am about two chapters into Snow Falling On Cedars. (As well as large chunks of the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
yuletide archive, which I'm choosing to disregard for the moment.) And they have made me happy. How wonderful; how wonderfully simple.
...and now I'm in England, and sleepy with it. Happy New Year, all.
Speaking of optimism, tomorrow, I am told, is New Year's Eve. (I have a wonderfully non-committal approach to the passage of time at the moment; I think for the first time in years I may actually have been on holiday.) And I was going to write about this year's resolutions, because I was definitely going to make them for once, and there seems to be something thematically appropriate about skimming over a sunlit landscape. (And, my god, the sea just appeared, complete with crags and mist and rising cloud.)
So. In 2009, I resolve to:
1. Write more. I don't mean write more worthy things, I don't mean write more self-consciously bloggish posts, and I definitely don't mean original fiction, although those are all good things. I'm going to write fanfiction, and bad porn, and endless musings on why Arthur and Merlin are so gay for each other and why Remus Lupin was Hard Done By. And it doesn't really matter about making myself a better writer, because ultimately you only become one if you write, and it doesn't even matter about finishing things or even making an enormous success of them, because a) you can't resolve to do that without setting yourself up for failure and b) writing is hard. I only just realised this recently. Writing is where you take the blank page (which, lest we forget, is not your mother; it is not your friend or lover, it does not care if you have a bad day or feel a bit sick or are on the happy pills) and knock it through to a crawlspace below, full of wonderful things (or Arthur and Merlin being gay for each other, whatever.) It is creating a world from cloth. No wonder it's hard, is all I have to say.
And, well, I kind of love it. Not writing, it seems, is harder than writing - for all the joyous grief the latter causes me. So I resolve to write more, to not not do the thing that keeps me happiest and mentally healthiest.
2. Dance more. This is metaphorical, sort of, although more flailing madly while dressed in black ruffly dresses is probably involved. I am not, you see, the sort of person who stays at home a lot. I don't like staying in very much. I like dancing; I like sitting in coffee-shops reading; I like giving my time to Amicus and Amnesty International, I like casework and letter writing, for themselves, a little, and for the satisfaction they engender. This is, I suppose, a twin resolution - not to sit at home as though that's what I do (which I don't, and why I said over and over that being depressed is vile and inglorious and painful but mostly really really dull) and not to be an armchair activist. Blogging is fun but you ought to do it about something.
3. Wear more dresses. Again, metaphorical, but simpler. Wear clothes I like. Throw out the ones I don't like. Wear glitter and sequins when I want to, and get things pierced when I want to, and not wear heels because I don't want to. (My Christmas present from
shimgray was a piece of resinous amber on a silver chain - it's simple, and very lovely, and yes, that. Small things make me happy and I think this should be endorsed.4. Read more. This is the resolution that's already in full swing, and already paying off. In the last few days I have read Kitchen, The Tales of Beedle the Bard, some of Naomi Wolf's The Beauty Myth, Firewatch, and I am about two chapters into Snow Falling On Cedars. (As well as large chunks of the
yuletide archive, which I'm choosing to disregard for the moment.) And they have made me happy. How wonderful; how wonderfully simple....and now I'm in England, and sleepy with it. Happy New Year, all.
