Hello again. Has everyone given up on their New Year’s Resolutions yet? Or are you thin, non-smoking and fluent in Mandarin?

I haven’t exactly given up on mine. I prefer to spend the first two weeks of January whittling my massive list down to the most important, realistic and manageable ones. Last year I made two:

1) Run a half marathon
2) spend at least a few weeks in the US

And I did them both! I think the reason I managed it was because they were positive rather than negative – things to do rather than things to avoid. This year’s resolutions aren’t as fun, but hopefully they will be manageable:

1) Eat at least my 5-a-day (unless pizza is a vegetable, I frequently fall down on this)
2) Have more fun/worry less
3) Make better use of my time

Worrying is an occupational hazard. This morning I was typing despairingly and looking at my book and thinking about all the things that were wrong with it. But the thing is: worrying does absolutely zero good at all – as this post points out.

So, to put my resolutions in action: I’m going to stop worrying about how my book is going to turn out, turn off the internet, and go back to my rewrite. Wish me luck …