Dear Me

Dear Me,

Knowing how disorganized you can be (this comes from a very long association with you), I doubt if you will be able to find this little letter in the clutter of your desktop two months from now. I’ll give it a try; you may surprise me and actually be able to locate it two or three weeks down the road.

At any rate, this letter is to outline some suggested goals for you for the year.

1. The first one is a simple one: Organize yourself! Clean off the desktop on the computer and the physical desktop. Right now I can only see about a square foot of actual desktop, the rest is covered by the phone, a coffee mug, some statements saying that you owe money to the eye surgeon, two notepads, a coffee mug (empty), three little note/pencil holders that also have two pairs of Dollar Store “reading glasses" in them and a slug of very old business cards that need throwing away. OK, so maybe organizing isn't so simple as it sounds, you might have to actually throw something away! Tough, do it!

2. Your second goal is to TRY to finish TWO projects you start this year. It doesn’t matter which ones; but you know you DO tend to begin something and then move on to something else as your interest in the first project lags. In 2008 you finished just ONE project, so two will double last year’s effort.

3. The third goal isn’t really a goal at all; it’s more like an “anti-goal”. (Is that even a real word?) The anti-goal is to simply not misspell so many words and, for god’s sake, learn when to write, “it’s” and “its”.

4. Your fourth goal will be harder. Try to spend more time writing than playing games on the computer. I know that your pudgy little fingers get tired typing, but when you play “Slay”, your mouse hand and fingers get just as tired after an hour. If you can’t write more, maybe you should try to actually ride that bike you bought at the end of last summer more often than once a week. Better yet, try spending more time with your wife.

5. Your final goal -- you spent half of last year working on "The Novel" and have it off to the editor now for polishing. Send it off to at least one publisher this year. If you don't try, it'll never be sold. You keep telling me that it's a best seller now show me! No, no, none of that, “Well, I think I need to do some more tweaking on chapter 3” stuff. Get it off to the book publisher!

Just give the five goals a try, me. If you can reach three of them I'll be pleased.

Good luck.

(Signed) “I”