Happy New Year y’all and wishing you health, happiness and other lovely things etcetera.

But it wouldn’t be New Year without a resolution or two hmm? Other worthier and better writers than I shall be listing earnest writing resolutions on their blogs. Write 1,00 words every day – that kind of thing.

I, on the other hand, am listing my alternative writing resolutions.

1. Do not write after more than two glasses of wine. Yes, the muse may well deign to wander in and stay a while and send you off on the most creative flights of fancy – but correcting the typos the next day is MURDER. And some of those creative flights of fancy, should they ever see the light of day, may well result in your arrest.
2. Find some reasons to squeeze in your favourite words everywhere. I’m rather fond of quality, spurious, elegiac, medley, splendid, muckle, fulsome and whesht (sp?). I don’t even know what some of them mean.
3. Learn grammatical rules. I’m a teenager of the 80s. They forgot to teach it to us. Two years ago, I was in charge of a Polish girl interning at the charity I was working for. Sometimes she would ask me to explain English grammatical rules to her, asking about clauses, auxiliary verbs, finite verbs and others. I  had no idea what she was talking about.

Finally, write no more poetry. As proof that I really should desist, I give you the following:

 T’was the day after New Year…

And all through the flat

Not a creature was stirring

Not even the cat

A true Scottish Hogmanay had just taken place

Which meant all the residents

Had decided to get “off your face”

Wine, whisky, lager and beer

Had all vanished down the hatch

Which meant that by 11pm, everyone was of good cheer.

Alas, the cheer lasted only 30 minutes more

And by 12pm, a major rammy took to the floor.

By 1pm, the police had been alerted, 

And by 2pm the party-goers deserted

Heading for the next party and a fresh home to wreck.