New beginnings

[Image credit: Sujin]

“ … the old has gone, the new has come!”
~ The Bible (NIV 1984)

Old habits die hard.  But as the quote states, the old has passed.  Finished.  Completed.  2012 has left the building.  Of course, that doesn’t mean we forget all the bumps and detours along our journey toward Someday.  It just means it’s time for a new beginning.  I love the feeling of a blank page.  It can be scary to some, but to others it’s a chance for redemption.  An opportunity for improvement, deliverance, recovery.  As one wise Yogi stated: Never too old, never too bad, never too late, never too sick to start from scratch once again (Bikram Choudhury).  If it’s not January 1st, it can be January 2nd or March 3rd.  As long as we have breath, each day is a new beginning.  Fill each page from top to bottom.  Go ahead, start now.  Don’t waste any of that white space.  And Happy New Year!

What’s a new beginning in your life?

No better time than the present

[Image credit: luigi diamanti]

Last week a friend of mine was looking for something to do.  She and I attended college together and shared several of the same writing classes, so my natural inclination was to suggest she write a story.  As soon as I posted my idea on her Facebook page, I asked myself why I wasn’t doing that very thing.  Yes, my fingers are already dipped in a few literary pots, but one of my goals for 2012 is to write a short story from start to finish.  What better time than the present?  So I sat down at my laptop, and, in what felt like mere minutes, I had a beginning, middle and end on the screen in front of me.  Granted, the piece still needs work: the characters require fleshing out, the setting lacks colorful description and there may be too much or too little white space.  What matters more than what needs to be done, however, is what I’ve already accomplished.  For some, the rewrites and edits are the hardest part, yet I feel like I already battled my demons, and now comes the fun part: bringing the story to life for the reader.

Is there something calling your name in the present that you’re ignoring?