Writing Resolutions

I don’t do New Year’s resolutions. Never have. I’ve never understood why the first day of an arbitrary new year is the one where goals should start. What really makes January first such a special day?

If I decide to set a goal, I do it on the day I realize how badly I need it, whether at end of March or on a midsummer’s night. Almost a year and a half ago, about the beginning of August, I realized that for years I’d pushed aside the biggest dream I’d ever had, the one of becoming a published writer, and on that day I took the first step to making my dream come true.

Of course, it hasn’t happened yet. But I’m still fighting for it. Every day.

And part of fighting for my dream is helping others to achieve the same thing. I’ve made a lot of writer friends over the last year and a half, one which is one of my critique partners. I’m taking a break from reading his latest manuscript to write this blog post because it’s got me thinking.

This manuscript is the third he’s sent me. And the thing is, all the while I’m reading it, I’m hoping that this is the one for him, the manuscript that makes his dreams come true. I’m hoping this is the manuscript that gets him an agent, a publishing deal, a published book.

That’s not to say I didn’t love his first two manuscripts. I did. He did. But no matter how many agents asked to read those other two manuscripts, none of them loved his stories like we did. So, like me, he’s written another story, given himself another shot. Because he has to. It doesn’t matter if it’s January first or not. When you have a dream like ours, you work all year. Or for years. Whatever it takes.

I’ve been there on the days he’s read agents’ emails asking for fulls, and when he’s gotten their rejection emails, just as he’s been there for all of mine. Through it all, we keep encouraging each other, knowing that the next agents we query just might be the ones that love our stories. It’ll happen, we tell each other. IT WILL.

So maybe what I’m saying here, the whole point of this post, isn’t to talk about resolutions. Maybe it’s to say that on December thirty-first, January first, or any other arbitrary day, what’s better than a resolution is a renewal of hope, to know that right around the corner could be the manuscript, the agent, the day my critique partner or I take that next step toward achieving our dreams. And that’s why we keep going.