Of the year that was, and the year that will be.

It's time to take up The Lighthouse again.  The year of Our Lord, two thousand and fourteen slipped by me with seldom a word in print.

Here are my top ten excuses for not writing.  Why ten?  Because most lists come in tens, so let's see if I can find ten very good reasons for not blogging... or ten mediocre excuses.

1. Blogging was so 2013. But Not Blogging is so 2014. Clearly 2015 will be the year for Blogging Again. 2015 will bring you The Lighthouse 2.0.

2. I used up all my words. There were none left. I had to wait for my next allotment. Any day now.

3. The internet stole my brain.  Really. Too much Youtube and too much Netflix. I got lost in the world of binging and didn't climb out of it until late November. It took cancelling my Netflix subscription for me to unplug enough to get my sluggish brain moving again.

4. I wasn't reading. How is that even possible? I don't know, but it happened. I can't remember one book of note or one that left a mark in 2014. Sure, there have been books, some of them even mildly interesting such as the one about mushroom hunters... but nothing I feel compelled to tell you you must read, and do it immediately. How sad! I'm beginning 2015 with one book read already, and poised to revisit my good friend Jane Austen.  This is going to be a good reading year, I can feel it!

5. Football. I know.  I can feel you roll your eyes from here, but football is partly to blame. There was the World Cup which saw Germany win (and play to a 7-1 win over Brazil, which translates to 68-3 in the NFL, or 721-14 in the NBA) Then there is also Manchester United figuring things out Post-Sir-Alex.

6. I lost my mind.  Truly I did.  I'm seeing somebody about it though, so it'll be ok.

7. I was dating someone, and then I wasn't. You wouldn't happen to have Mr. Darcy's number, would you?

8.  I was working, and then I wasn't.

9. Then I needed a personal assistant to make sense of my schedule. Three jobs  at the same time took all the oomph I had.

10. I didn't want to become famous. It's bound to happen eventually... 2014 wasn't the right year for it to happen.


So here we are, in the newborn days of 2015.  It feels a propitious year for creativity and being writerly and exploring new paths and reading great books.  Don't you think so?

I wish you well, I wish you merry, I wish you joy.
t.