We saw the new year in pretty quietly… after a game of Scrabble my 11-yr-old and I dragged sleeping bags into the living room to sleep under the xmas lights I’ve strung everywhere. There was really nothing good on the radio, so we just counted down to midnight ourselves, then climbed into said sleeping bags and chatted a little before falling asleep. By 12:30 it was all over. Party animals!
A Youtuber she’s been watching decided to coin a new phrase to take the place of “good luck” (which seems a little insulting when you think about it, like I’m saying sheer random luck is the only way you will get through what lies ahead), and they chose “wishing you success”, but that’s too long so after much shortening they came up with “you succ!” This ranked right up there with my best joke of the evening, which came during Scrabble when I said she was just sitting on her “R’s” (she had two), and she actually laughed until the tears came, which I always take as the very highest parental win.
I asked if she had any new year’s resolutions and she replied “be good and learn to fly”, which was pretty much what I deserved for asking. Harbinger of many more smartass remarks to come in the year of turning twelve.
As for me, I’m planning to step back from the things which sidetrack me and sap my strength and good humour, in order to devote more of my time to Real, Actual, Real Writing. I am already miserly with my time, but I must hoard it ever more jealously to accomplish even a small percentage of what I’d like to do this year. I’m currently working on a variety of projects in a few different media – novel, play, podcast – and expect this will be a year of great experimentation and a fair amount of flailing about in confusion.
This is a pretty vague preview of the year to come, I suppose, but stay tuned! I will keep you updated here as projects emerge from the primordial sludge of my brain. (Ew.)
And so, dear friends, Happy New Year! You Succ!
