A year in sum

When another year dies, we have this tendency to convince ourselves that our arbitrary measurements of time have some meaning, and that they are defined by how much we’ve done in that span. As I get older, I’ve begun to realize that survival is itself an accomplishment we shouldn’t be so quick to brush off. The need we have to be constantly doing something, as though our existence lacks justification otherwise, is an evasion. Just background noise to fill the silence; busywork to keep our minds off of our own doubts over whether or not we are who we want to be.

And so I sit here at the start of a new year, unable to stop myself from examining my performance of the last twelvemonth at least a little. I did, after all, quite brazenly and with enormous bravado, decree last January that I would finish the zero draft of my novel before the end of 2012. It’s much easier to sweep such declarations under the rug when you don’t make them out loud. That’s why I made that one where everyone could see. I do my best work under pressure. Or so I tell myself.

Well.

While I didn’t actually manage a finished draft, I am calling my work of the last twelve months a success. It took nearly three years of my life and innumerable drops of (blood) sweat and tears just to accomplish the first fifty thousand words. Since then I’ve added more than one hundred and seven thousand. Yep, that’s right. Over a hundred thousand words in 2012, which is why I can’t be disappointed with myself. That’s a hell of a lot of work I made myself do no matter how hard it got some days to make my brain English. And even though the last several weeks of the year were filled with more non-verbal days than I would have liked — even though I may be pushing through a mini-slump even as this post hits the intertubes — I’m still going. Slow work though it may be, it’s happening. This story is heading into its climax and not even good old-fashioned writer’s inertia can stop it now.

So you can suck on that, 2012. I am not ashamed of you, no matter how much you may want me to be. We lived, we learned, we even took several steps forward together.

Next.