Since I’ve been thinking of my birthday as my New Year’s, I wondered whether yesterday (my birthday) was the New Year’s Eve or the New Year’s Day in my imagination. As the evening was capped off with a drunk man continually turning up a stereo so loud that no one could talk to each other, I’m tempted to say yesterday was the Eve. Which is fine. After all, the age you turn on your birthday is the age you’ve just completed. So today, I march into the next year.

I do have resolutions that follow the birthday. And though things aren’t nearly sorted enough for me to start thinking of things like this, I know I will be starting to write a new novel soon. I know what it’s about. I’m working on the details. I had a schedule last year when I started Barry’s Cherries. I don’t quite have the stability in my life to set a schedule right now and until I do, I won’t be able to progress much. But I guess there’s something to say for telling a whole bunch of people you intend to do something. You’d better follow through or you’ll look like an idiot.

I learned last year how to write a novel. I had a plan. I had a schedule. I stuck to it. I know I can do it. Writing several hundred pages of a story doesn’t intimidate me anymore. This next one I sit down to write will be my fourth. That’s right: fourth. I wrote a novel in college that no one has been allowed to read. It doesn’t even have a title. Being Good was the second novel I’d written. Barry’s Cherries the third.

I haven’t yet decided whether I’ll blog about progress on the new one. I wondered last year whether to blog about the writing and decided against it for jinxy reasons. Then once I got into the writing, I realized that after several hours with my eyes glued to the computer and my ass glued to a chair, I didn’t want to spend any time recapping the experience in my blog. So it became a moot issue. Don’t know how I’ll feel this time. Since the writing can’t be strictly scheduled yet, maybe I will be able to talk about the process more. As if anyone gives a damn. (And if you do, let me know as I don’t get any feedback from this blog so I never know what my visitors care to read.)