Friday's Filings

Brought to you by Kellogs... start your day fresh with a big bowl of Kellog's Breakfast Cereal... and by the Number 4.

Lately, I find myself thinking of a certain President flying onto an aircraft carrier and declaring to the world that the "War is Over". I "Finished My Novel" on May 17th. It is now the end of December and I still haven't reached the half way point on the rough draft. Its taking a lot longer than I thought, primarily, because I've never been this far before on a novel or story. I've never rewritten anything. And the tendency is to try and perfect something that you know you'll never be able to perfect. Its like making Spaghetti and after cooking the noodles and adding the Ragu sauce, you want to start experimenting with spices to give it the most authentic Italian flavor possible. Sooner or later, all you're left with is a big mess of cold spaghetti. So, I've finally forced myself to come up with a withdrawal date - Novel done or not - and I'll be pulling my creative troops out of harms way on March 7th, 2006. See, Mr. President, it was that easy.

And speaking of Bush... Why does he need the Patriot Act? He seems to be dismantling the Constitution just fine on his own without any help from Congress.

Politics aside, this January 1st marks another banner day for me and my annual tradition. About 8 years ago I started a new tradition of creating a list of New Year Resolutions - one for each year that I've been alive. So, this year, now that I'm 36 (at least, I'm fairly certain that's how old I am... doing math is getting more complicated as I get older ;) I have to come up with a list of 36 New Year's Resolutions. Now, most of these resolutions tend to be the usual sort that you find on everyone's list - eat right, excercise more, write novel, win Pulitzer Prize for Fiction; that sort of thing. But combined with that smaller list, I usually try to match it with things that I actually want to do - to sort of force myself to do them. It just works as a sort of reminder throughout the year to take time out and do things for myself - like vacation or concerts or spend time with friends, things that I might cancel for other "more important" things if they weren't on my list. At least a few times every year I use the excuse - well, I've got to do that because its one of my resolutions. So, anyway, I totally recommend this excersise to you. I'll tell you now that you'll have no more success with 30 plus resolutions than you do with one. I usually get about 2 to 7 done a year. This year, I think I actually got about 10 done. But it definitely reminds you throughout the year what you wanted to accomplish and makes you think ahead about what's important.

This year, I believe the things on my list will include: Go to Disney World, Go to NCAA Sweet 16, and go to Giants game on my birthday. If any of you would like to chime in with some fun things you think I'd like to do, please send your comments. I have until January 1st to finish my list.