About that resolution

Funny thing about writing is that it used to be much easier.

Somewhere around 1991, I became one of those kids who didn’t have their textbook with them in class, but always had a spiral-bound notebook with all sorts of strange numbers and notations on the covers, and nothing but my guts spilled inside, in free verse or prose or illogical proofs, or somehow critically important diagrams that outlined everything my teenage self knew about life.

And the notebooks piled up over the next 10 years, because it was so simple to write, for myself, by myself, in one form factor or another.

But now… Oh, now…

Here’s a short list of things I did before I finally started writing this post:

1. Started thinking about writing more.
2. Tweeted New Year’s Resolution about writing more.
3. Considered Posterous, Tumblr, or a new WordPress blog as possible vessels for “writing more,” which has now earned quotes for itself as it becomes a concept off in the distance instead of a concrete thing I might actually do.
4. Considered writing a blog post here along the lines of “hey, I might start writing more here about other stuff and less about journalism, because really, I think there’s just about enough of that going around.”
5. Considered redesigning blog first.
6. Thought better of it.
7. Got up this morning, made coffee, etc., fiddled with my superphone checking email, Twitter, Google Reader, Facebook.
8. Opened the laptop, checked more email, found the above tweet, took a screenshot, got annoyed with laptop, restarted it.
9. Software Update.
10. Your MacBook must be connected to a power source to continue.
11. Opened up WordPress. Distracted by unusually high traffic to this blog’s homepage yesterday.
12. Fruitless, half-assed investigation of traffic.
13. Upgraded plugins.
14. Upgraded WordPress.
15. Started writing.

Just 15 steps.

Writing more is easy!

Probably related: Go listen to Merlin Mann talk about the perils of getting hung up on getting started. Wait a minute, maybe you shouldn’t click on that link. Maybe you should just… y’know… Start.