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My incredibly motivated alter-ego is trying to kill me.

It occurred to me early this morning, as I was still blinking some of the sleep out of my eyes, that there was something I could do . . . something bold and daring, something that a wacky hero on a circa 1970 TV comedy show might hear about and say “You know something? That’s just crazy enough, it might actually work!”

Ah, how I miss those crazy circa 1970 TV comedy show days. You couldn’t be tired and cliché in those days . . . everything was fresh and new, and ideas were ripe and ready to pick, practically dying to get overused to the point of cliché.

Anyways . . . I’m just trying to delay the inevitable here, which is putting this out there for the world (3 people) to see. So, enough dilly-dallying and reminiscing about the checkered, striped, and lime-green past. Here goes . . .

Updates like the ones I’ve been doing aren’t hard. They’re born of the nagging sort of ‘Hey, I haven’t done this in a while, and I probably should’ kind of guilt that into my head from time to time, when I realize that I’ve actually spent the past hour googling for pictures of swiss cheese for no other reason than to count the bubbles. I mean, if I can spend an hour doing something like that, I can spend at least ten minutes coming up with a quick note about writing, what’s going on, and where I’m at, right?

And then this idea struck me. The implications terrify me.

I said to myself, “Self? You can spare ten minutes every day, can’t you? I mean, you’re writing, you’ve got projects on the go, you’ve got all sorts of things occupying your time and energy, but you can spend ten minutes a day putting together a brief something, right?”

So I replied to myself, “Uhm, yeah. Yeah, I guess,” not liking where this was going.

So then I said to myself, “Well, that’s settled then. We’re going to increase the frequency of posting. You know what? Just to make it easier on you, we’ll do updates every other day!”

“Uhm, thanks?” I said to myself. “I guess that’s . . . good? Hmm, what will I write about though?”

“Glad you asked – that’s actually the brilliant part! What you’ll do is you’ll identify each of the projects you’re working on and provide updates on progress made, so that people will get to see how much work you’re putting into stuff! And, of course, this’ll shame you into doing even more work, because you don’t ever want to post an update that just says ‘Hey, I did nothing these past 2 days. Sod off.’ Do you? Public shame as a motivator! It’ll be awesome!”

“Now hold on a second,” I shot back at myself heatedly, “I didn’t agree to that! Let’s just slow down here a second, figure this whole thing out!”

“Nope, sorry . . . done deal! Mwahahaha!” I laughed, running off before I could do or say anything to change my mind.

Stupid alter-ego.

So, there we are. I guess I’m stuck with it. Starting now, updates at least every other day, and in those updates I shall speak of the progress I’ve made since the last update I’ve done.

(deep breath) Okay, starting . . . (checks wristwatch, realizes he doesn’t wear one, and instead stares at his wrist for an appropriate amount of time so he doesn’t look silly) . . . Now!

The year we make contact. Or, was that 2001? I can’t quite remember. See, that’s the problem with writing stuff that’s in the future … we think it’s really good, we remember it, and then when that actual date comes around we go, “Hey! What the crap, man? Aren’t we supposed to be seeing monoliths on Jupiter, and have flying cars ‘n stuff like that? What gives?”

Indeed … if literary future-thinkers are to be believed, we should have a second sun by now, three-point-two flying cars, and something called ‘thought crime’, which I’m pretty sure I’d be guilty of if it actually existed. Ever walk into a store and think, “Man, I could just totally grab that thing and run this-a-way, and there’s nothing nobody could do about it!!” Yup… guilty! (pounds gavel) I sentence you to forty years in the electric chair.

Anyway, this post isn’t about that.

No sir, it’s about what *I* plan on doing in 2010! That’s right… I’m going to take a rather daring step and post some new-years-eve resolutions exactly three weeks *after* new years, just so they become extra poignant. Are you ready? Here they are.

1. I will finish my current project, which is *so* top secret that if I were to tell you what it’s called, a very influential writer would start spinning in his grave. I mean it, too! He’d be generating enough torque in his final resting place, if you hooked up a battery to his forehead and looped a copper wire around him in a ten foot circle, he’d light up Times Square…
2. I will begin/middle/finish my YA novel… the one I’ve been mulling around in my head for the past two years. Yes, the one that will be turned into a multi-million-dollar movie within five years, because that’s what they’ve been doing with any sort of literature that involves seventeen-year-olds and even *remotely* occult circumstances. I’m gonna be rich, I tells ya… *rich*!
3. I’m going to finish pt 1 of my trilogy. I’m so serious about this, I haven’t even bothered to make some sort of gag about it.
4. I will begin the third of Vincent’s journals.
5. I will look both ways before crossing the street. *honest*

As for the last one, based on my understanding of this morning’s walk to work, as well as this evening’s walk back from work, I’ll have to be very careful to pull off #5, just so I’m in a position to be able to pull off #1-4…