the brothers crow

I tried to start a blog around this time last year. It was unsuccessful largely because I thought of it as a chore and not an outlet for expressing myself. I’m sure there are a lot of people who go through the same exercise of setting up a blog and procrastinating the blogging. In my case, I tend to get absorbed in the preparation. The skeleton of a project seems much more interesting at first (not to mention easier to assemble), and my inspiration gets exhausted before I put any meat on the bones.

Time will tell if this site is any different.

In his first “real” post–the title being a subtle jab at my first “fake” post, now deleted–John asked if I was being productive. The time was about 4:30am and I was tinkering with WordPress. It felt productive, but of course it was more of the same disguised procrastination. I think we all do it to some degree; we find things to keep ourselves busy and postpone the real work. Which brings me to my first New Year’s Resolution: Do less “busy work.”

John’s post also reminded me that I haven’t finished the Dark Tower series. While I introduced those books to my friends and family about six years ago, I never read past the fourth one, Wizard and Glass. My wife, Irene, read the last book right when it came out. It’s been over three years now, and we still can’t discuss the ending because I haven’t caught up. The truth is that I don’t really read books anymore. Maybe my eyes hurt from coding, or maybe I’m just more comfortable staring at a screen than a printed page. In any case, I know I’m missing out on some good stories. Dusting off Wolves of the Calla, I made my second resolution: Read more books.

After returning from the bookshelf to my desk, I realized that it was actually 4:30am in the morning and I would be driving Irene to work in only 3 hours. Why the hell was I still awake? Resolution #3: Go to bed like a normal person.

I remember making the same commitments last January, but I’m going to call that a practice year.