Resolution #1: Write more

I never made New Year resolutions. I never really believed in them. If you want to change something, or break a bad habit, or start a good one, why wait until the new year to do it? Just do it now. But this year, I've decided I needed to make some changes in my life. So I started a list during the last week of December of resolutions for 2009. One of them, of course, is to write more. So what does that mean exactly? Write more each day? Write more often in general? Specifically, it would be ideal to write 1000 words a day. But I'm a realistic person. I know about baby steps. I know that with a full time job and a busy social life I'm not always going to fit in 1000 words a day. I like the 5-minute rule better that some writers follow. Sit down. Open document on laptop. Write just for five minutes. That's all. And usually I end up writing more than five minutes. That's the trick. Doesn't matter if it's 1000 words, or 250, or 25 words. I've written. I have met my goal. By setting a small goal of just writing for 5-minutes, I end up accomplishing much more.

Here I am, sitting at Caribou Coffee in the middle of snow storm, trying to get my thoughts on paper. I've gotten 900 words down so far. But thanks to Adam, I now know that Caribou has free Internet. Starbucks doesn't. Borders doesn't. Intelligentsia doesn't.  And the whole reason I get out of the house is so I can get some writing done instead of waste time on the Internet or watching TV. But hey, I wrote 900 words today. That merits spending some time on the Internet. Especially when that time on the Internet includes writing in my blog, part of the resolution to write more. 

My battery is running low. So I guess my writing session at Caribou is over for today. Now I just need to trek home in the middle of this storm.