Prepare for Takeoff

It’s that time of the year again, isn’t it? No, I don’t mean Christmas (or whatever it may be that you celebrate), which I love and look forward to with childlike anticipation every year. No. I’m referring to that end-of-the-year feeling, when you look back at the last twelve months through the artificial prism of the calendar year. Whether you want to or not, it’s almost impossible not to reflect upon the year that is just now approaching its end, and contemplate all of the highs and lows, achievements and disappointments that it contained. You recall how you felt back on that first day of January, with that odd mixture of hope and trepidation as you looked out ahead at those 52 weeks of yet-to-be-told stories.

For me, on balance, it’s been something of a difficult year. This, of course, is all relative, as had I been born in the Swat Valley or Mogadishu my perspective would entirely different. But in the context of my own little space on the planet, this year wasn’t “one for the books” as they say (at least, not in a good way). I say “on balance,” because it’s actually been a very productive year for me, playwriting-wise. But it was also a year of ‘ever so very nearly but just not quite’ experiences as a professional playwright, battling his way through this very tough business. There were simply too many potentially very big things that didn’t quite come to fruition, which is very frustrating to say the least. Large carrots dangled in front of me, only to be whipped away at the very last minute. Oddly enough, my astrological chart had predicted just such a year for me (I didn’t know this at the beginning of the year, thank goodness). I’m not big into that stuff, by the way, but I did find that interesting nevertheless.

But, as I’ve said many times before, a writer’s greatest asset is tenacity. If you can take the punches and keep coming back up (see my last blog entry), then sooner or later that pendulum will swing back around. So, I’m looking forward to the coming year as if it were another chapter in a book that is sometimes hard to read but impossible to put down.

Myself, I’m about to start work on a new writing project that I’m very excited about. More on that later.

In the meantime, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, and I hope that 2011 brings all good things. Bon voyage!