Basic, but the basic rules are the most important and usually the ones people forget first. This youtube user has a series of videos along these lines, so click on through if you’re interested in seeing more like this.
2014 was a good year. Finished my third book. Survived a fourth year at my job. Moved into a bigger, better apartment with my lovely wife (“Yes, I typed ‘lovely’, honey. Now stop looking over my shoulder. Please.”). Even got in the best shape of my life after six months of hard training. Next week I’ll be traveling to England for two weeks to visit family, then on to the States before returning to Korea. In the meantime, I’m waiting for a few agents to get back to me about my book, but really hoping that one of them in particular takes me on.
For the first time as the clock struck 12 and I sang Auld Lang Syne while a Korean awards show droned on in the background and my wife and I toasted mediocre champagne, I could honestly say that I had no regrets about the past year. All of my resolutions were met, even exceeded. And since I’m on a roll, might as well keep up the momentum. So, here are my 2015 resolutions, in no particular order except the one that formed as they tumbled out of my mediocre-champagne-addled mind:
- Find an agent who worships me. Failing that, one who loves me. Failing that, one who likes my writing. Failing that, an agent who’s willing to give me a chance. Failing even that, one who just feels sorry for me.
- Find a publisher?
- Finish my next book. I feel good about it. Also, I’d like to finish the second book in the series that I have agents looking at, but I’ll only work on that if I get a contract for the first one. So, to summarize, complete another book (or two) this year.
- Get in even better shape. I’m one of those everyone-hates-me-cause-I-can’t-gain-weight kind of people that everyone hates. This year I increased my weight from 65kg to 70kg. I’ve never weighed this much in my life. This year, I’d like to bump that up to 73kg. I would say 75kg, but I want to be realistic. 73kg is doable.
- Read more. Finishing 24 books this year should be doable. So two a month.
- Make my wife’s life better, happier, and easier. She deserves it. (“No! Of course I didn’t say that you made me type it! What kind of husband would do that?”). No, but serious, she deserves it. Seriously. No, I’m completely serious. I want her life to be brighter, because she brings so much happiness to my life. Let’s be happy, honey. Together.
- Study Korean more. I’m still very much a beginner. It would be nice to be at lower intermediate by the end of the year.
2015 is going to be more kick-ass than last year. And 2014 was pretty 최고 already. I’ll have to be sure to find better champagne for next New Years Eve, though. This year’s sucked.
We live and breathe words. .... It was books that made me feel that perhaps I was not completely alone. They could be honest with me, and I with them. Reading your words, what you wrote, how you were lonely sometimes and afraid, but always brave; the way you saw the world, its colors and textures and sounds, I felt--I felt the way you thought, hoped, felt, dreamt. I felt I was dreaming and thinking and feeling with you. I dreamed what you dreamed, wanted what you wanted--and then I realized that truly I just wanted you.
-Cassandra Clare
-Saint Augustine of Hippo
Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly -- they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced.
-Aldous Huxley
Take the Adventure, heed the call, now ere the irrevocable moment passes!' 'Tis but a banging of the door behind you, a blithesome step forward, and you are out of the old life and into the new!
-The Adventurer Rat from The Wind in the Willows
We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.
-Kurt Vonnegut
A comic about introversion by Luchie. Read the whole comic on her blog, French Fries And Waffles.
