2012 Promises

Hello and happy new year to all. May 2012 be one of health, happiness, and the making of your dreams come true. Instead of affirming a resolution, a word that brings to mind lawyers, politicians, and all that is devoid of charm and imagination, I have decided to make a promise, to myself.

Three, in fact.

First, I will publish a novel I completed during NaNoWriMo 2011. Much of December was spent revising it, and as of today, I’m halfway to completing the second draft. If all goes well, February will be the month of polishing the prose. A synopsis to Make-Believe: A Novel is here.

Update 10.2.2.12: All went semi-well. It was a cold-and-fluish January. Brain mush, really. The first serious revisions were completed yesterday and because the events toward the end radically changed, the synopsis will have to change. February is the month of starting revision number two. March could be the month of polishing prose.

Secondly, I promise to meet a 500 daily word count or 1 daily poem of new writing unrelated to whatever project is currently scheduled for completion. The inherent danger is that I’ll lose time for preparing work for publication. The only answer to this is too bad. Ahem. Story a Day and Creative Copy Challenge might help me keep this promise.

Update 10.2.2.12: For two weeks, I did just that, and then the spring session began. Suddenly, there were 500+ pages of poetry and criticism to read per week, while cold-and-flu head mushed. I’m reducing the hope to one new poem on the weekend.

Thirdly, I promise to actively seek out lucrative editorial work on projects with people who find value in play and poetry as much as they do in profit, and who are committed to improving the quality of all of our lives. This is pretty loose, and speaks to my emerging value system more than it does to a particular product, company, or sector. For example, this morning while reading a recipe, I returned to an unresolved question: Why is living like a vegetarian morally superior to eating fish from responsible sources that contribute to their re-population? Or, wouldn’t it only be morally superior if vegetarians also donated money to help repopulate dying species or supported organic practices no matter the edible object?

The implication in my question is that being vegetarian is not a de facto socially responsible and globally healthy way of living. It might be. I don’t know, and not knowing clued me into examining my values more deeply. I tend to be mostly a vegetarian, but not for moral or political reasons: healthy, socially- and ecologically-responsible sources of meat are expensive, making it more practical to be a vegetarian. Yet, I need to ask this question if I’m to understand what this third promise really implies. Not just this question, but many. And when I do, I am surprising myself.

Another example. I can no longer see the problem with doing work for an oil company that contributes a significant amount of money and research to positive environmental change. When the debris from the tsunami and nuclear danger in Japan landed on the coast of Vancouver Island and Seattle, it was the greatest unwanted evidence that what happens there affects me here, that hard lines are ideological.

Perhaps because I live so much in a world of ideas (writing, editing), I’d like to say I’m against Against and for Not Judging, which sounds like little more than I prefer to play with words. In some ways, I do. The real world is so complicated, and it is very rare than I don’t challenge someone’s hard lines. Mine are growing fewer, but the ones that remain are strong. The concerns of what food we eat or what cars we drive or how advertising can pollute society, all of this is important, but none of it addresses that some people don’t have enough money to eat, never-mind buy a car or be corrupted by advertising.

Update 10.2.2.12: Being true to one’s values in a world where everyone is trying to make a quick buck means finding similarly honourable (?) and successful potential partners, suppliers, and clients requires more research than there is time. The learning curve is high and realizing this promise will be a lifelong endeavour. The challenge is finding like-motivated people, and this means developing opportunities to develop relationships. But how to blow away all the ecofluff, or cut through the greenspeak?

I need to add one more promise to myself for this year: learn to identify and see beyond petty bourgeois concerns I don’t even know constrain my way of thinking, behaving, and believing. It’s tough to do when my pretty MacBook does everything I ask it to do.

Update 10.2.2.12: This is an extension of Promise #3, and still a puzzle. Just when I think I see something for what it is, I’m tripped up and questioning all over again.