Big Plans
I’m a famous quitter. Ask my family. They’ll tell you about all my big plans. If I had done half the things I planned to do, just in the last five years alone, I’d be a goat farmer, a maker of organic goat cheese, an organic poultry farmer, a volunteer EMT, an importer of Irish Sport Horses, a best-selling novelist, a campaigner for immigrant rights, a Labradoodle breeder, a teacher of English as a second language, a daily trampoline jumper, daily tread-mill jogger and the host of my own talk show. Each of these grand plans was presented to my husband, children, and whoever else would listen, with the same degree of gushing exhilaration as the next, and there was a time when they, too, would get whipped into a lather of excitement over each idea. But no longer. Over the years, my family has learned that there’s no point in preparing the backyard for goats or fantasizing over puppies and sport horses because once I begin to process the actual details of each thing, it always seems easier to just hold-off.
“Really?” my daughter now yawns, “An EMT? Good luck with that.”
“Sure,” my husband will mumble vacantly, staring at the TV, “goats are nice. Why don’t you get started on that?” There’s no need to go into it further with me because they know that as soon as I begin to uncover the minutiae about goat stink, or nightly EMT training sessions, the whole thing will be pushed to the back burner.
So, when I told them that I was starting a blog to go on my new website, a website created to help promote my forthcoming novel, Outtakes from a Marriage, they had a good laugh at my expense. Even a friend with her own blog urged me to be realistic about it. “Everyone plans to blog daily, but sometimes it’s hard to keep up. You really have to commit to it,” she said.
“I’m committed!” I declared, and who wouldn’t be committed to the rosy future I envisioned for my fledgling blog. When I thought about my blog, I could see it, fully formed, a computer screen filled with thousands upon thousands of my very own witty observations and poignant reminiscences. I imagined people quoting my blog, stealing all my funny material from my blog, gathering around the office water cooler to talk about my latest blog. There would be controversies over my blog. When my audience grew, there would be advertisers, book deals. And of course, my own talk show...
That was a month ago. Every day since then I have not started my blog. Because, again, when I took a good hard look at the details – the logistics of blogging, I started to become a little more realistic about the whole thing, and honestly, my prospects as a successful blogger look bleak. First of all, in order to have a blog entry each day, one must write each day. Although I think constantly about writing, the truth is that I often don’t write at all, for days on end. Now, not only will I not be writing my new novel while I’m parked at Marty’s the local coffee shop, swilling coffee and gossiping with my neighbors, but I’ll also not be writing in my blog. Well, I’m going to give it a shot anyway. I will write in my blog each day, even if it’s just a sentence. Then, when people ask that intensely annoying question – “Have you been writing?” I can, for once, say yes without lying.
So, welcome to my blog, which I have decided to call, “Wicked Good Life.”


































