1. write a book

I'm not going to lie to you guys, I was super tentative about publishing my New Year's Resolutions. 1. Because I feel like it's a very cliche thing to do, and we all know how I feel about mainstream & cliche {hint: I'm not a fan}, and 2. Because this is the first year in about 10 years that I've made resolutions {or goals, as I prefer to call them} that actually mean something to me. That's why I kind of love this definition of resolute. Resolutions are so often something that people make at the beginning of the year, they join a gym, they buy a journal, and by March, it's dissolved into a distant memory. That's why I quit making goals a long time ago, I realized I had the attention span of a 6 year old when it came to bettering myself, and I was tired of failing. But this year, these things are very near and dear to me. There things about myself I would really like to grow in, or things I really want to do without allowing fear to hold me back. 

You'd think after all this time of putting myself out there on the blog, the nerves of doing so wouldn't exsist anymore. But oh, they do. And really, it's usually easier to talk about my opinion of something than it is to put my hopes and dreams out there. But you just never know when they're going to inspire someone else. Plus, putting them on the World Wide Web means I really have to do them, no one wants to fail on the internet. So, never being one to half-ass anything, I'll just share the biggest, most scary resolution I set this year first, k?

I want to write a book. Really, I want to take my most poignant blogs, add to them, write some more, and publish them. A book in the vein of Tina Fey's Bossypants or Mindy Kaling's Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, but I guess really, totally different. I just want to write a book that Christian and non-Christian girls {or guys. whatever.} can pick up and read, and it shoots them straight. One that talks about the hard stuff that they've thought about, but never knew who to talk to about it. A book that addresses lust and sex and relationships and body image and growing up in a way that doesn't just leave you going huh? like most "Christian" books these days do. A book to tear through all the super awful lies, stereotypes, and misdirections that are constantly thrown our way these days. Something to make you question the things you've always just believed and bought into, and never taken a second look at. I want to write something that doesn't tell you to Kiss Dating Goodbye, but rather talks about how to do it healthily. 


I've been through a lot, I've walked through a lot of crap and hard times. And it'd be really easy for me to go into poor-pitiful-me mode and ask God why? And let's be real, I did that for a really long time. But this blog brought me back from that and made me realize that maybe I've walked through all that darkness so I can help be a light for other people who are walking through it, you know? He gifted me with the ability to write, and to be open, and I'd be wasting my gifts if I didn't push forward. So, why am I so afraid to do the dang thing and publish a book? There are a couple. The normal fear of failure, I think I'm less worried about people buying my book, and more terrified of giving it to a publisher and them telling me it's crap. I'm afraid people will think it's very prideful of me to think my writings should even be published. And also, the blogging world's big, but it's not as big as the book world. I'm equal parts afraid of getting eaten alive and disappearing into the masses. But it's #1 on the resolution list, and now it's on the internet, so it looks like I've got to do it, huh? 

So, resolution #1: write a book. I made 4 this year. The rest will come in the following weeks. And as always, thanks for coming along with me.