New Year Resolutions: ‘Plans Ten, Execution Three,’ AKA Here We Go Again

Why does every new year feel like wash, rinse, repeat?

Remember the hit Broadway musical A Chorus Line?

If so you may remember a song from it called Dance Ten, Looks Three. You may not remember that’s the title of the song, because the chorus of the song sounds like it should be the title. What’s the chorus? T and A, if that’s not TMI.

Anyway, when I saw Robin’s prompt, what came up for me was how excited I get as December winds its way through its winter wonderland of holidays. Excited for Advent, excited for Solstice, excited for Christmas.

And even though there’s a bit of post-holiday letdown after Christmas, I do get excited about a new year and a chance to start again fresh. So I spend the last week of December, the one I call the week in between, reflecting on the coming year and setting new goals and intentions.

The idea of what I can accomplish in a year fires up my imagination and gets me dreaming and scheming. What would feel good to accomplish in a year’s time?

Well, gee, let’s see…

Finishing my novel’s at the top of my list.

After all, I’ve been working on Man Pregnant! on and off since the last century when it was conceived and born as a screenplay. Until Jodie Foster’s production assistant (PA) pointed out at a Hollywood pitch fest that Billy Crystal’s Rabbit Test and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Junior flopped.

The world just wasn’t ready to see a pregnant man on the big screen.

Okay.

I couldn’t argue with that. But at every pro-choice rally I went to, inevitably someone held high a picket sign saying, “If MEN got pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.”

So what that PA really meant was, men weren’t ready to see a pregnant male on the silver screen. And in the late ‘90’s, Hollywood’s gatekeepers and green-lighters were by and larger, men.

That told me my audience would be women. Primarily. And women read a lot of books.

So I followed the advice of another PA and re-wrote my story as a novel. And even if men are still the primary gatekeepers and greenlighters in the publishing industry, now they aren’t the only ones. And self-publishing is always an option.

I started pitching Man Pregnant! at writers’ conferences where agents spoke on panels and handed out business cards. When I queried them I was told that my concept’s riveting, but the execution’s a bit too slap-sticky for a socially-relevant satirical novel.

Concept ten, execution three?

They were right, it turned out.

Back to the computer for yet another rewrite.

Fortunately, now I had a great editor who understood my main character, Pastor Sterling. He’s a pro-life minister who’s been unfaithful on Valentine’s Day when conceptions reverse course and impregnate the men.

Clinics pop up overnight like mushrooms after a rain, offering Verility Enhancement Procedures (VEPs) to rid guys of their unwanted intruders. Of course, Pastor’s desperate for the very procedure he’s fought against for years. When he tries to sneak in, he’s hounded by the media and his own R2L organization. Such fun!

I’ve been working with my editor, Shaunta Grimes to transform Pastor Sterling from a two-dimensional cartoon buffoon to a relatable, albeit egotistical, believable character.

And while we just finished going through the entire manuscript, there’s still more to do. I need to go through it one more time for what I hope is a final polish, making sure the early parts jibe with the new ending.

But that doesn’t stop me from nagging at myself.

I sound like Rex Harrison playing Pope Julius II in The Agony and the Ecstacy. Up on a high scaffolding, Charlton Heston’s Michaelangelo lay on his back inches from the Sistine ceiling creating God creating Adam. While pacing under him, Rex kept yelling up in his clipped British accent, When will you make it end?

And you know what?

The time it takes to make this book the best it can be is well worth it. If it takes me another year — or more — to polish and obtain the right agent, so be it. As long as I keep the process moving, I need to let that be okay.

But it may not take that long if I make it my top priority.

And work on it before my daily Medium fix, like Shaunta’s been encouraging me to do. She reminds me that writing or editing a minimum of ten minutes a day is how she published five books to my one in progress.

So let me not trip myself up with scolding admonishments as I launch into 2024. Let me remember the motto of the turtle who prevailed over that fast but distractable hare: Slow and steady wins the race. Persistence pays, and quality sells.

Can I live with this reframe? Heck yes. Thanks for asking!

What about my other resolutions?

In a nutshell, they’re: eat greener, move more, find an experienced, butt-kicking physical therapist, and treat my apartment like the home sanctuary it is.

Give from my abundant overflow of stuff, stuff, and more stuff to folks who don’t have enough. Donate to nearby thrift stores like Goodwill and Out of the Closet. And then hire someone to help me do a deep and thorough cleaning.

Yes, I have these same goals every year.

And each year, I get excited about how this time will be different. Until the post-holiday letdown when reality sets in and I’ve eaten too much sugar and skipped my Essentrics stretches too many times. Oops.

But then again, these aren’t one-and-done to-do’s. They’re life changes I want and need to make. And sustain. The older I get, the more significant they are. Not just to look good, but to feel good and be well.

So while I’m grousing about how my scores have been ‘plans ten, execution three,’ can I make like a dancer from A Chorus Line and do some leg kicks?

Who knows, I might be a singular sensation after all?

Thank you, Robin James, for this provocative prompt!

Marilyn Flower’s a sacred fool who writes every day — fiction, poetry, and blogs — inspired by a process called SoulCollage®. She’s the author of Creative Blogging and Bucket Listers: Get Your Brave On. Follow her Sacred Foolishness or SoulCollage® for Writers, and Stay in touch!