New Decade Resolutions

When the newspaper showed up on the porch last Friday emblazoned with the date January 1, 2010, I have to admit I felt like I’d just emerged from a time machine. 2010? Is that even possible? That can’t be a real date. Real dates, as we all know, start with the number “19″. I might be inclined to include a few dates that start with “200″. But 2010? Not possible.

Unfortunately, it’s not only possible, it also actually happened. I didn’t emerge from a time machine or wake up from a dream. It is indeed 2010 and that can only mean one thing: it’s time to make some New Decade Resolutions. Forget about what you’re going to do this year. This year will be gone in a blink. No, let’s focus on the next ten years, which will last much, much longer. (Only ten blinks, by my calculations.)

I’ve thought long and hard about what I’d like to accomplish before December 31, 2019 and I’ve decided to share some of this with you now, primarily because I can’t think of anything else to write about at the moment.

• Finish the first draft of the next book.
• Read it.
• Delete it.
• Write it again, but more better.
• Submit it to a literary agent.
• Get a thank-you letter from a literary agent who tells me it’s the greatest thing he or she has ever seen and will be retiring immediately after selling it to a publisher because, obviously, his or her career as an agent has just peaked.
• Get a big fat check from a publisher who decides to cancel all other books currently in process in order to properly focus on this masterpiece.
• Go on a book tour and sign at least three copies per stop, hopefully to people who aren’t relatives or book store employees.
• Write the second book in the series.
• Repeat many of the previous steps.
• Get approached by many representatives of the film industry to make the movie version.
• Offer that Terry Gilliam is probably the best choice to direct.
• Cry a little that the studio picked Michael Bay instead.
• Go to the premiere of the movie. But in disguise, of course. (Damn paparazzi.)
• Return home from the movie to stare at my IMDb entry.
• Leave a comment on how they left out all the best parts of the book, completely misrepresented the villain, but overall it was still pretty good, much as I hate to admit.
• Finish the book series.
• Finish making all the movies.
• Make two brazillion dollars.
• Give 99% of it to charitable organizations.
• Take a well-deserved nap.

Oh yeah, and I almost forgot. I’m going to eat right, exercise, and lose weight. And I’m also going to go back to Jupiter to find out once and for all what happened to David Bowman.

So there you have it. How about you? Anything you’d like to accomplish over the next 3,647 days?

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