Introducing @NathanBurgoine - Resolving to do Better with #NewYearsResolutions

Hi. It's the new guy. I'm 'Nathan Burgoine, I write strange stories where it's often our world but turned a wee bit sideways, but no matter the magic, psychic, or what-have-you involved, generally most of the time the guy gets the guy and love wins. I'm chuffed to come aboard Romance Eh?, especially since last year I got my official Canadian seal of approval in the form of citizenship. I was born in England, but I've lived here in Ottawa more than half of my life now.

That would be where I took that photo, by the way. Sorry about the snow, but it is Ottawa, it's winter, and I have a rescued husky. I figured this was as good a place to start as any, given said husky is very, very happy that it's winter and this is often my view multiple times a day. His name is Coach, by the way, and likely you'll hear a lot about him over the next year, as I often find myself interpreting things he does and having lightbulb moments.

It's been three days since we rang in the New Year all the traditional bells and whistles in our household (read: we went to bed early after watching a movie and held a snoring competition—I lost), and given that yesterday was a holiday for my husband, today becomes the first get-back-to-work day of the new year.

In other words, it's time for the New Year's Resolutions.

I came around to the value of New Year's Resolutions slowly, and mostly as an adult. When I was younger, making a New Year's Resolution was more-or-less a silly endeavour, and often involved outlandish goals I had no chance of accomplishing.

Twenty-year-old me would have listed stuff like: 'Learn to play the piano,' 'take classical dance lessons,' 'run every morning,' and 'go to the gym every day.'

Twenty-year-old me was tone-deaf, had two left feet, lived in Ottawa where it gets to be minus-freaking-forty-degrees Celsius, and the less said about going to the gym, the better.

Present-day me, though? He's a bit wiser. Not much, mind, but enough to know that resolutions can be useful if I put the right spin on them. So, this year, the resolutions are pretty simple:

• Write.
• Read.
• Review.
• Boost.

Now, it might seem like those are all cheats, because those are all things I already do. And that's correct. But here's the thing: revisiting something you already do and making it a stronger, better habit? That's totally a worthwhile resolution.

Also? No gym required. Unless you already go to the gym every day in which case I admire you and shall eat a cookie in your honour.

Okay, two cookies. But only because the theme today is building on something you already do.

As an author, the first thing on that list is built-in. Writers write, right? Well, ask any dozen of us how we write and you'll get thirteen answers, but my goal this year is to write a bit more. I've got two major deadlines where last year I had one, and one of my writing goals this year is to submit something monthly. Short fiction, which is my first love, is easy to drop by the wayside when you've got a novel on your plate, and I want to make sure I don't do that.

Also, the second thing is built in to being an author, too. Reading. This one I'm guilty of sometimes avoiding when I've got too much to do, but my husband and I are making a weekly "date" on the weekends to head to a coffee shop with no digital devices of any kind and sitting down and reading while we drink something twenty-year-old me would consider joining a gym to repent over.

Reviewing and boosting go hand-in-hand, and while I've always been a pretty prolific reviewer, this year I'm going out of my way on my reading list to find voices I've not heard before, and shout it out when I enjoy them.

So, while all of those goals are things I do already, a New Year's Resolution gives them me a bit of a nudge to focus on them a bit differently. To turn something that's been a soft habit into a regular effort. To take what I already did, and do it again, only better.

What about you? Do resolutions get you going? Do you make them, or break them, (or both)? Are you with me on doubling your cookie intake this year?  (Just kidding. Maybe. It's not too late to add a fifth resolution, right?)

Oh, and speaking of doing something again, only better, I have a novella that just released that's very much about that theme. Only instead of making a New Year's Resolution, it's about a guy who has an opportunity to set some things right that went wrong the first time, thanks to some awful luck, a terrible diagnosis, and incidental time travel.

In Memoriam

Available now!

With one diagnosis, editor James Daniels learns he is quite literally running out of time. With only weeks left, James comes face to face with the life he has lead, and finds it wanting.

It’s too late for regrets, but there is one thing James needs to do: find Andy. Andy was the first man he ever loved, but Andy has been gone for years and might not want to be found.

When the worst thing that he could ever imagine happening also gives James a way to reach Andy again, James finds himself facing the greatest – and final – rewrite of his life.

Can a dying man restore love from nothing but memory, or is the past just too far gone to fix?

Available on Amazon and Audible.

ApostropheN.wordpress.com