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(Credit: Writing Quote created by Paul Jenny using photo by kconnor)
As I’m writing this post, my family is downstairs preparing to celebrate the New Year by watching the festivities in New York City. It’s bitter cold this year, with temperatures below freezing, so I’m glad we’re safe and warm inside.
Although I’ve asked my five-year-old and his cousin to play somewhere other than where I’m writing, they’ve insisted that where I am now is their house and that it is in desperate need of decoration with all the blankets and pillows in the house. Lots of loud yelling and the playing of random musical instruments directly in my ear accompanies their shenanigans.
Despite this, I keep typing, keep trying to focus in the midst of the jocularity and imaginative play swirling around me. I have to ask them several times to stop leaning on my arms and jumping on my head as I type because I need two hands and my brain to finish this before midnight.
This quote by T.S. Eliot about last year’s words belonging to last year’s language while next year’s words await another voice seems like a great one to explore on the last day of 2014.
If you follow me on Twitter, you know I’m struggling through a tough patch in my work in progress. In despair I gave up for a few weeks to get perspective on what I was writing. But in that ending was a new beginning. I stopped and re-read everything I had written and found that the story was holding together but definitely needs a good paring down and tightening up.
Last year’s words belong to last year’s language. Next year’s words await another voice.
This idea of a new year and making resolutions on the night before January 1st has always seemed kind of silly to me. Since it is always NOW, the best time to make a change is now. The past is already gone the moment we bring our awareness to it and the future is constantly being created in what we do now.
One of the beautiful things about Time is that it cannot be wasted in advance. The next year, the next hour, the next minute are waiting for you as if you had never procrastinated too much on Twitter or Facebook, drank one too many glasses of wine, made one too many trips to the fridge, or sighed and shut the computer down instead of finishing your next sentence, chapter or story. These unsullied moments are there waiting for you to turn over a new leaf, hourly, if you choose to do so. Endings can happen at any time, making way for new beginnings.
I urge you to use your other voices and next year’s words in a powerful way. With each moment that you don’t do something you say you want to do, remember you can also, in a moment, decide to do it as well. I’m looking forward to reading what you write in 2015. Stories are the Wildest Things!
Image may be NSFW.
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Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
