A Resolution, 5.5 Months Late

Funny how you can easily forget the things that set you off running in the first place. And then, in one enormous moment, it all comes flying back to you and you remember just what you had as your start. I must say that I know this well, almost too well, after everything that's happened today.

Now, let me give you some background - I'm writing approximately 28,000 words a week. That's over half of a NaNoWriMo novel, and that's in a singular week. This is all because I'm writing new chapters plus 750 Words plus Penzu entries plus other novels that haven't been posted yet...I'm writing a ton. I average about 4,000 words a day with this.

Let me tell you - I've figured out the approximate speed of my writing. I can write about 750 words in 15 minutes if I'm focused. We can do just a bit of math to figure out that it takes me five minutes to write 250 words, or one minute to write fifty words. If we apply this to the 4,000 words, then we can figure it out fairly simply. It would total up to be about eighty minutes, if I just wrote straight on.

Now, eighty minutes doesn't seem like too long of a time. It's approximately how long an episode of Sherlock is, after all. I could just switch on some Cumberbatch and Freeman and write away...right? Well, no. I get distracted far too easily for all of that. It ends up taking me hours to finish my writing.

I spend all of my free time (when I'm not getting distracted) working on writing. I literally only have one core class this semester, which means very little homework, and I'm still finding myself so busy because of all of this writing I feel like I have to do!

The thing is, I think I'm obsessed with writing.

I'm so obsessed with making novels that I've nearly forgotten where it all began.

Novels. I read novels. I am a reader. Or, at least, I was a reader. Once I got into high school and got into the groove of weekly updates on Wattpad, my reading has decreased dramatically. Surely some of you must know how bad I am at reading your stories - and you're not the only ones. I mean, the author of Nature and Nurture (Sherlock fanfiction featuring a clone baby - it's excellent and probably one of my favorite fanfics out there) only updates about once or twice a month, and I'm still behind.

I've lamented over the fact that I've seemed to have lost touch with reading, but I never seemed to act on it. Frankly, I just felt too anxious that I'd get behind on my writing and that everything would end up falling apart. I still feel that way at this very moment.

But just a few days ago, I was cleaning my room. Part of that requires me to clean up my books, of course. As I was shuffling them around, I realized just how badly I wanted to read those stories once again - and also read those I hadn't experienced yet. I've been reading here and there on my Kindle, but it wasn't until that moment that I just wanted to sit down and read.

Then I ended up forgetting about it...that is, until today.

I picked up a book called Every Day by David Levithan. The premise had sounded interesting when I bought it in the bookstore months ago. It had been stuck in my room, waiting to be read, but it wasn't until I was assigned an independent reading project in English that I found my opportunity to do so.

Then today, during lunch, I decided to get ahead on the reading for the project, if only by a little bit. Within those twenty minutes, I had ended up going about forty pages. It's not too much, but it was still significantly past how much I had to read today.

When it came to English class, we ended up down in the library for the last few minutes of class. I ended up passing one hundred pages. I was still thirsty for more. And I couldn't possibly surpress that...or could I?

So I thought about for a few minutes. Then I realized that I just needed to get back into reading. Every Day will have to wait for school nights for me to read it, but I'm sure I'll just end up tearing straight through it.

I decided that, at least for today, I was going to push writing aside. It was no longer my main priority. I plan to read today. I plan to read, at least a little, every single day. And if I can, I want to be able to read through a book a week for the rest of this year...or possibly the rest of my life.

That's my resolution, even if it is five and a half months after New Year's.

- Rain