This year I am determined I am actually going to make some changes. Every year it’s the same old resolutions and every year the default setting quietly settles back into place. And it’s understandable when the past three years have been fraught with violent upheaval. I find myself sort of annoyed at the universe for having given us such a persistent diet of unexpected changes, though in all honesty I suppose they were heading our way for a long time in each case. Anyway, it would be nice to focus just on the changes I actually choose, rather than those that have been forced upon us.
The first thing I really want to change is my tendency to book myself up with work and deadlines for months ahead. It’s an old bad habit and I’m tired of it. That means I’ll be cutting right back on reviews. I’ll do a few for Shiny (BookBuzz remains my prime responsibility) and I have a couple outstanding for this month. After that, enough for the time being. So this blog is also getting a shake-up as I’ll be writing here once a weekend and it will be more of a diary format. Given that my activities, such as they are, mostly include reading, there will still be some talk about books.
My related resolution is that I am going to try not to buy any books this year. No, Mr Litlove doesn’t believe I can do it either. And I might not be able to. But shortly before Christmas I began to tot up how many unread books I own and… well, let’s say it’s enough to keep me busy for a while. For years I’ve been a big supporter of the publishing industry, but I think it’s fair enough to let others take on that role while we have no income.
Last year was somewhat hogged by CFS, but the long-term resting strategy that I’ve been following since the autumn is gradually making a difference, I think. If I can keep going with the pacing, and stay patient, I might be able to improve my health significantly. And if I could work again, I have to wonder what I would do. Supposedly, since I left college in 2012 I’ve been devoting myself to writing, but then the past three years happened, and I haven’t had a decent stab at it. So my plan is to give it one last try, one more year, and if at the end of that I haven’t made any progress, then it’s time to think again. I’ve been considering finding part-time work as a counselor of some kind, probably working with students one way or another. I have lots of experience but no qualifications, and the qualifications are really expensive to get and will mean going over ground I’m very familiar with. Well, we’ll see; it’s a way off yet. But when I think about what motivates me, I realize I have no desire to be an important person, but I really do want to do something that I think is important. I would like to feel useful again.
One way that I can be useful at the moment is supporting Mr Litlove. This is such an enormous change for him, leaving 25 years of life in industry behind to make furniture. This past week he has had a number of moments of – well, I think the technical term here is ‘wobbliness’. I thought back to when I was made redundant from college and what I remember most clearly is Mr Litlove telling me what a fantastic opportunity it was, and me feeling the most disinclination to write that I had ever felt in my entire life. In many ways, this is the sort of moment that I want most to capture. Because we think that when change comes along, or indeed when we try to be creative, it should all be plain sailing. We’ll make progress like people do in the films, when they show that five-minute training montage. But human nature is contrary, and it is complex. I think we seriously misunderstand creativity, what it feels like, what it demands of us, and that’s something I’d like to think about in much more depth. I daresay Mr Litlove will feel rueful about it at times, but he seems to have become my private study support student.
So, to sum up, 2016 is all about a sharper focus for me. I need a sturdy triage system and essentially this means that I’m only doing things that are a) important, b) really interesting to me and c) fun. And I’m going to try to give up feeling guilty about everything I don’t do (you would not believe my capacity to feel guilty about anything) – as if it helps! And I’ll try to keep myself honest and up to the mark in a weekly blog. This year I mean business – at least until the next thing happens to throw us off course!
