I’m not good at keeping resolutions of any kind,  New Year’s or otherwise.  So that’s why I’ve stopped making them in the past.  I just don’t have the willpower or the motivation to follow through.  If no one else is depending on me doing something, chances are, I’m not going to stick with it.  I am not sure exactly why it is.  Perhaps I spend so much of my time working- where there is always someone anticipating or needing something from me, that when it comes to myself, it’s almost a break to not expect anything.

I’ve never gone on a true diet, because the times I’ve tried to “eat healthy” have lasted all of 3 days before I succumbed to my intense craving for Ben & Jerry’s.  I don’t exercise, because I’m just too tired at the end of the day (or the beginning of the day).  I realize that this is very bad.  Very bad indeed.  I want to be someone capable of improving myself, but let’s face it, that’s not who I am.

To get to my true point though, I sort of made a resolution this year to write more.  To be precise, I made a resolution to do something writing-related every day, even if it’s only for 5 minutes.  I’m not setting any kind of goals or holding myself to any kind of standard, but I felt like it was a resolution that needed to be made.  If I want to ever truly be a real writer, I need to be in the habit of writing on a daily basis.  When I wrote Twenty-Five, I couldn’t put my freaking pen down, but since then, it’s been a constant struggle to find the time and the energy to be creative.  I think I have a habit of sabotaging myself and I’m trying to break that with a new habit.

So far, I’ve been doing really well.  I haven’t spent a lot of time each day writing, but I’ve opened my computer and written something on The Death Effect every day since January 1st.  I have a brand new chapter that’s SOOO close to being finished and I find myself thinking about the characters and the scene I’m working on when I have down time (basically, when I’m driving to and from work and when I’m trying to fall asleep).  I think I may actually finish a first draft at some point.  At the rate I’m going, it might not happen in 2012, but it is going to happen.  You can check The Death Effect’s page to check my progress throughout the year.  As I’m writing this, I am up to 46, 924 words, 38 chapters written, and 4 chapters started (they are short chapters, just in case you aren’t familiar with how long 46K words is).  I’m estimating that the completed first draft will be between 65K and 80K words, with 55ish chapters.

I’m looking forward to this.  I hope I find it in myself to go through with it.  If you follow the blog and you notice I haven’t updated in a while, feel free to give me a good kick in the pants.  I’ll probably need it at some point.