So here we are, 2020. MMXX. Y2XX. A new year, a new decade. The Future. Traditionally, people make resolutions at the start of the new year. We look at this turn-over of years as a potential "fresh start;" a chance to do things differently, mostly for the betterment of our lives, be it physical health, mental health, financial health, etc.
According to History.com, people started making resolutions as early as ancient Babylon, around 4,000 years ago. It all began with people reaffirming their loyalties to their rulers, promising their gods that they would repay any debts that they might have incurred over the course of the previous year, and return anything they borrowed from their fellow Babylonians. If they kept their word, their gods would smile on them for the upcoming year as would their neighbors and their rulers; if not, well-- who wants to piss off a god, or a ruler, or a neighbor, for that matter?
Ultimately, this ancient custom morphed into what we do today, albeit generally with more self-directed resolutions, like losing weight, reading more, getting a better job, and the like. The ideas are similar, except now the only gods we're trying to curry favor with are ourselves.
I make resolutions, sometimes. Sometimes not, as the inspiration strikes me. Some of my more beneficial resolutions (that I've kept!) have had to do with my writing. Back in 2003, for example, I resolved to write a poem a day, and by God I did... by the end of the year I had 365 new poems in my portfolio. And though most were poems I wouldn't care to share, a few were pretty good. And those are works that I would not have had otherwise, so, mission accomplished. Not to mention I got better with each one I wrote.
As December of that year rolled around, I remember thinking that maybe I could make a resolution regarding my writing that could potentially be more marketable. Maybe this coming year ('04), I could write prose instead of poetry. Excited as December 31 came, I resolved to write a modest 500 words of prose a day. For those who don't write, that's about two pages a day, a good, steady amount that quickly piles up the word count, as well as-- again-- honing your skills within the craft.
It began in a scattered manner, with me just filling up the page with mostly unrelated sentences and ideas. After about a week, those sentences and ideas began to coalesce into a story. The ideas came, and I wrote them down. Most days I had to forcibly stop writing at 500 words so that I would have a good starting point for the next day's work.
I wrote steadily, almost feverishly, and day by day, week by week, my story took shape. When January turned into February, and February morphed into March, I finished the story I was telling, at just under 100,000 words, or about 400 pages. That story turned out to be my first Celtic Tale: "Ard Righ: The Sword on the Stone," A story about the power vacuum left by the Roman Empire's withdraw from Britain, and the rise of a new leader, King Arthur.
The original title was simply "Ard Righ," the sub-title was added later by my publisher in an attempt to make the topic better connected to the familiar Arthurian legends about which the story was written. In subsequent printings, it was (re)re-named back to just "Ard Righ." Ultimately, as the story grew, "Ard Righ" became a part of my series "A Celtic Tale," and so the title change a third time to "Ard Righ: A Celtic Tale-- Book 1."
I digress back to March of 2004. I had found that by following my resolution, I came to the conclusion of my story, but I knew it wasn't the end of the tale. So, I continued writing, and low and behold three months later, int he summer of 2004, I had completed the sequel to "Ard Righ" with a story entitled, "Kingdom of Summer," a story that continues the tale of King Arthur's rise to power and his defense of his kingdom.
But I still had six months to go with my resolution, and so the story went shamelessly on. Over the third block of three months, from roughly July of 2004 through October, I continued Arthur's story, detailing the later stage of his reign, culminating in-- well, I'm not going to spoil it for you; you can read how it culminates. At any rate, book three in the series, "Reign of Fire," was born.
In the meantime, I was submitting my query letters and synopses for "Ard Righ," maintaining a log of submissions, which consisted mostly of filing away rejection letters. I posted the good ones on my bulletin board for inspiration. Finally, I got asked to send off the first chapter, and then the first three chapters, and finally the entire manuscript. This was all going on probably sometime towards the end of "reign," in late fall.
One afternoon, I was working in my parent's basement, where I had set up a little office for myself in a dark corner, when my father called down the stairs, "Raymond. Phone for you." I picked up the extension, and it turned out to be Dr. Alexander Kuklin, of DNA Press. Dr. Kuklin wanted "Ard Righ." After a two-plus-hour discussion, I acquiesced. Of course I did.
And so, the moral of my rambling essay is this: sometimes, making resolutions actually isn't a waste of time. The key, I think, is to make it something you can actually accomplish, something realistically attainable, and to make it publicly. This latter bit because the more people who know, the more you will be held accountable, and ultimately the more pressure you will put on yourself to keep/complete your goals.
With all of that in mind, I have a couple for myself for 2020. Some are more vague that others, and probably will be harder to complete, and some are very specific, and will be all the more easy to achieve. My hope is that stating them here, the more vague ones will come into focus, and the specific ones will call me into accounting.
Without further ado:
2. The country of Ray will no longer be run as a democracy. Nothing and no one is going to have any influence over my thoughts and feelings any longer, unless I specifically allow it. I have given enough of my mental and physical health to worrying about ultimately insignificant things and people who exist only on the periphery of my life.
3. I am going to be writing regularly this year once again. I can't nail it down to a specific word count this time, as I am that much busier, but I can do some writing every day, from blogging to essay writing to short stories to-- dare I say it-- a novel.
Happy 2020, everyone! Good luck with any resolutions you have chosen to work on this year. Remember, the longest journey starts with one single step. If you falter, get back up, dust off, and take another, and another, and another. Sooner or later, if you keep trying, you'll get there, I guarantee it.
© Ray Cattie
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