Tuesday, 8 January 2019

Pay No Mind



As I don’t make New Year’s resolutions, I am not making the same one again this year. I am not promising to write more. I do not resolve to clear my mind and let the Muse do her thing; I will not try harder to be creative and I do not promise to finish any of the projects that have sat half done for the past xxx years.

Xxx years? Really? Augh. And I call myself a writer?

Well, yeah. I do. I just don’t call myself a prolific one.

In keeping with my ritual of non-resolution, I don’t plan to change my status and become more prolific. I haven’t spent any time perusing incomplete stories with an eye to changing their status, either. Yet one has begun to resume forward motion. I had stalled, as usual, when my head got, well, ahead of me ... and the quote above this post came at the best possible time.

Now I have something new to practice: cultivating no mind. Thinking is okay, but doing too much of it is not my friend. It’s not conducive to art of any ilk. Or to life, when it comes to that. How often do you change your mind before choosing something at random off a menu? How many playlists do you agonize over before picking one just to make it stop? Do you ever wear what you planned to wear? I admit to a perverse pleasure in anticipating my drink for Thursday cafe with wee sis and boy sister, but even then, I’ve been known to toss my plan out the window when I get to the counter. (Okay, that’s mostly to throw the barista, who prides himself on knowing his customers’ “usual”.)

One week into the new year and my non-resolution is already in danger of being broken. The story I mentioned is almost done. Once I gave it some serious attention (not thought), it started to write itself and now I know how it ends. I just have to write myself there.

Never mind.

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