Margaret Moore on how to organize your writing life

JAN BROGAN - As you might have picked up by now, I love books about the brain and at the top of my most recent reading list is Organize Your Mind, Organize Your Life by Margaret Moore and Paul Hammerness, MD.

It's all about ways to keep focused in this world of non-stop distractions, how to keep your eyes on your own particular prize. A lot of the advice is useful for learning to reduce stress and live a healthy lifestyle, but I found it especially relevant to writing goals. Having run the writing challenges, I know how many other writers out there could use inspiration on how to ignore the distractions and stay focused, so I invited Margaret, also known as Coach Meg, to Jungle Red and she graciously agreed to visit.

She is is co-director of the Institute of Coaching at McLean Hospital, a founding advisor of the Institute of Lifestyle Medicine at Harvard Medical School and the founder and CEO of Wellcoaches Corporation. If you are lucky enough to hire Coach Meg for your executive coach, you pay top rates. Here, she gives us some of her advice for free.

Writers are the worst procrastinators and they also struggle with balancing their lives with writing and promotion, so I asked Coach Meg to explain one concept in the book that I found especially useful. It's called "focus time."

COACH MEG: Focus time (when you bring all of the brain’s attentional resrouces – top, down, back, front, right left – into the full spotlight of focus) is the most enriching and productive time of our days. It’s one of the top contributors to psychological well-being. Schedule at least one focus session per day where you set up the ideal conditions for a calm, positive, energetic, and creative mindset.

JAN: You not only need to schedule it. You need to guard it with your life! Writers are vulnerable to distraction. We talk a lot here at Jungle Red about the lure of email and the Internet and how it sidetracks us from our writing goals. Can you give us some of your tips for controlling the impulse to check email or surf the net?

COACH MEG: First notice when and how you are responding automatically to impulses – it happens frequently. Most effective approach is to turn off the wireless so no email or web is available. If you are waiting for an urgent message, tell your brain (Hello Brain, while we will scan email for the urgent message we are expecting, we will let go of any others that come along, all of which can wait until the end of the focus session.)

JAN_ Writers, or probably anyone who works at home, faces a lot of interruption in a day. I was fascinated by the concept of shift sets, and your advice to make conscious decisions when your day gets interrupted - how to capitalize on the interruption instead of resenting it. Can you give us an example?

COACH MEG: Scenario 1 – something urgent comes up, more pressing that what you’re doing now. Make a decision to shift completely to the new activity for a defined period, then perhaps shift back to the original period.

2. S Scenario 2 – your brain is tired and your productivity has slowed or stalled. Take a brain break. Save tasks like making a bed, cleaning out the dishwasher, putting in a load of laundry, making a quick call to set up an appt for your brain break times. Go exercise during brain breaks.

JAN: You talk a lot about mindfulness, what might the advantages of mindfulness training or practice be for a writers?

COACH MEG: In order for your mind to better “drive” your racing car brain, your mind needs to be awake and aware of what your mind and brain are both doing in any given moment. The ideal state is that your mind is objective (and not falling mindlessly into distraction or frenzy) and has an arms-length relationship with the brain’s automatic processes, noticing them and pausing to choose a response.

A mindful brain is a clean and healthy brain that can focus without distractions, be productive and creative, and make fewer errors. Other benefits include better immune system, decreased depression and chronic pain.

Experiment to find a meditation practice which works for you (you notice benefits in a week or two). There's also more on mindfulness and a meditation exercise to help clear the brain for work at my website www.organizeyourmind.com (under mindfulness tab).

JAN: Writers have to balance writing with promotion. Right now you must be doing the same thing, balancing book promotion with coaching your clients - do you have tricks that you can share?

COACH MEG: I monitor the state of my brain and body continually:

• Is it tired and needs a quick break, or a workout?

• Hungry or thirsty, needing a snack or meal with the right balance of protein/fat/carbs as optimal fuel, water or “antioxidants” (such as a bowl of berries)?

• Wanting some spontaneity – do anything you feel like for a short period?

• Needing to stretch to loosen muscle tension?

• Needing to connect with another human being?

I call this body intelligence and for more on why it's so important, click on this link: body intelligence .

JAN - Thanks, Coach Meg!! She will also be checking in today to answer questions, so fire away!

Too Much Tech?

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Okay, we're all wired. Otherwise, we wouldn't be reading this blog on our desktops, laptops, notebooks, or smartphones. And we like it, or at least I do, I freely admit. But there is ongoing--and sometimes less than coherent as well as contradictory--research and dialogue about how constant exposure to digital data is affecting our brains and our lives.

The consensus among most researchers (as I switch from article to article on the internet) is that the human brain was not built for multitasking, and that it has not yet rewired itself. While that may happen sometime in the future, we are now doing many more things at once, and doing them less well. There's an upside, of course. A certain amount of social connectedness may make us more emotionally healthy, but there are limits. (I would like to have lunch with my daughter without her constantly texting someone else and checking in on Facebook. And my husband reads me posts on his Facebook page over dinner... He is, however, talking TO me, so maybe this isn't so bad.)

But in following the comments on our Jungle Red Writer's Challenge check-in the last few weeks, I'm most interested in how the constant deluge of data affects us as writers. Our challenge was to write for two hours every day without checking email, Facebook, or using the Internet in any way other than to do absolutely necessary research. And almost everyone who's participated has found cutting off the data flow a CHALLENGE.

I've started turning off email and Facebook on my computer, not just for two hours, but for big blocks of the day. And I've been turning off the notification alerts on my phone. It vibrates when I get a phone call, but I'm no longer constantly responding to the Pavlovian data ding. (Scientists call this reaction to stimulation a "dopamine squirt", which sounds really disgusting.) Imagine, using a phone as a phone!

Has it helped my writing concentration? Without a doubt. Have I missed the constant connectedness? Not too much. But I'm finding I really enjoy it as a treat a few times a day, and I've stopped worrying quite so much that I'm missing something if I don't check in all the time.

None of us are likely to give up the internet. For me, at least, it's an amazing research tool, although it still hasn't replaced books. But I think a lot about how much time we spend every day doing things that never have our full attention, and that we forget almost instantly. There are few of us, writers and readers, who are going to leave collections of letters or diaries behind for future generations.

So what about you, fellow Reds? How much tech is too much tech? Do you find you have to set limits, and if so, what works for you?

ROSEMARY HARRIS: I definitely have to set limits. There's a powerful urge to check emails first thing in the morning and first thing in the morning can quickly turn into 12pm if I'm not careful. I've taken to writing in another room just to be physically away from the siren song of the computer.

I also had a mini-epiphany when I realized I could turn off the Ping! sound my computer made every time a new email arrived. (Well...it COULD have been Johnny Depp emailing ..) The challenge has been great for me as it's made me more conscious of how wisely I spend my time online. I'm going to do it, but I've been less likely to check out Demi's marital troubles just because the link pops up 100 times a day.

RHYS BOWEN: I'm afraid the internet has become a huge time waster. I used to read my emails before I started work. Now I go on Facebook, Twitter, my own blog, Jungle Red, even check my Amazon and B & N stats before I start writing. I'm trying to cut down but it is addictive. However when I was out of email contact in Morocco for almost a week--guess what? There were no emails of great significance waiting for me. I have to tell myself that it really isn't important who has mentioned me today on Twitter.

And the internet has its dark side too--bad reviews in blogs from ordinary readers not qualified reviewers. (I blog about that on Rhys's Pieces this week) Being slammed on Amazon by those with an axe to grind. I know these things shouldn't matter but they depress me and hinder my writing creativity. So when I start my next book, I vow to keep up the challenge. No online until my number of words for the day is complete!

HALLIE EPHRON: Oh, yes yes yes! The Internet is a demanding and fickle friend. I turn off my wifi when I get serious about writing.

Reminds me of those pigeons in B. F. Skinner's operant conditioning chamber. When a pigeon was rewarded EVERY time it pressed a lever, it learned to press on the lever. When the rewards stopped coming, the pecking behavior soon diminished and stopped. But when pigeons were trained with rewards delivered not with every press but at random intermittent intervals, the pigeons kept right on pressing the lever long after the rewards stopped coming. We are addicted to news, emails, etc. just like old BFS's trained pigeons.

LUCY BURDETTE: Yes it's absolutely weird how sane people (such as ourselves) are turned into rats following the Internet's Pied Piper. I watch myself when I'm beginning something hard (like writing my fresh 1000 words/day)--that Firefox logo is like a giant magnet calling "touch me, open me, something urgent is waiting!" I have an old email address that's now difficult to access, though it still gets tons of spam. Every month or six weeks, I make the effort to check it. Very rarely do I find something I wish I'd had earlier--a few lost friends, but I can reconnect with those. If someone wants to contact me about a movie deal, I bet they'd try a little harder!

JAN BROGAN: The thing about email is this: You get an email: you respond. The sender responds to your response. You think of something witty and you just have to respond one more time. And thus ten to twenty minutes is completely wasted.

Interesting, when I cut way back on my email and Internet exposure, my mood improved. I felt really a palpable brain relief. And more than most people, I am not a multi-tasker. So it makes sense that too much digital data would mess me up. Now I think of email as having a glass of wine or a beer. Once or two you feel pretty good. If you have more than that in a day, you'll get a terrible headache.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: You know, it's funny-and I hope I'm not stepping on an toes. But the thing about answering emails immediately--I used to pride myself on it. Now--unless it's an emergency or something where someone obviously needs an answer--I just wait until I'm finished what I'm doing.

I just took a step to the dark side...and got an iPhone. I LOVE it. But I consciously try to stay away from it. I control IT--it doesn't control me.

The other life-change is how little I TALK on the phone. But that's probably another blog.

DEBS: So JR readers, how about you? Do you answer the bell, or let it ring? (At least occasionally...)

Writer's Challenge Week II

It's an illness, and I've go the cure

JAN BROGAN - It was a rough beginning to the week, with some serious elbow pain and family issues messing with my writing schedule. Also preparations for the New England Crime Bake annual conference - where I actually am today, as you read this.

On the other hand, I did a ton of research that I needed to do for my new novel, and to be fair to myself, I really need to do that research before I can write that much.

By Wednesday though, I was disgusted with my progress, or lack of progress. Mostly, I was disgusted by how easily distracted I was. Then, in a fit of distraction, I read a new study by (yes, again) my favorite blog, PSYBLOG on discipline. And how it really builds on itself. The more you exert discipline, the easier it becomes.

So.... I put really put my foot down on Internet distractions and this is how I did it. I set the alarms on my I-Phone for 11:30 a.m., 3:30 p.m. 7:30 p.m. and 10 p.m. And these are the rules, I can use Internet for book or assignment related research during that period, and I'm allowed to check in at Jungle Red, which I consider work-related, but I can't go anywhere else on the Internet. I also cannot check email until I hear the alarm.

Yes, I'm just like Pavlov's dog, I practically start salivating for email when the alarm goes off, but you know what? I've been insanely productive between the alarms. I finished a freelance article I was working on, made huge headway on two other assignments, and have done a ton of research.

Yes, I'm all smarmy with feeling better about myself - and wanted to share because it really does work!

Anyone else have any helpful hints to share? Confessions to unload? Pages to boast about?

Writers Challenge Winners

JAN: Well, I hope everyone who participated feels like a winner - I know I do now that I ignore my email for hours at a time (yes, really!) It was easy to pick the three winners at random, but harder to pick just one for inspirational and one for honest, because there were so many participants who were eloquent in their comments (not so surprising, since you are all writers) and pretty much everyone fessed up to a slip or two.

But here goes: The winners chosen at random are:

Silver James

MaryAnn

E.B. Davis

Most inspirational is a tie, to both Stephen R - who wrote through pneumonia -- and to Ray -- who really helped cheer us on.

And most honest goes to Jack.

Please email me at jan@janbrogan.com and I'll tell you which prizes you won:

We're awarding three signed ARCS -- from Julia Spencer Fleming, (One Was a Soldier), Hallie Ephron (Come and Find Me ) and Rhys Bowen (Bless The Bride). A out-of-print hardcopy of Deborah Crombie's Now May You Weep, An out-of-print hardcopy of Final Copy, and a copy of Drive Time, the last in Hank Phillippi Ryan's award-winning Charlie McNally series.

Writers Challenge Week Six

JAN: Well, its over. Done. We can all pat ourselves on the back for our efforts and calculate our word count and page numbers. Or maybe we just feel good about figuring where our story is headed - the hardest part of writing isn't writing, it's thinking.

Aside from practically finishing my novel (I'm halfway through the changes based on first reader comments), my biggest accomplishment has been the distance I've put between myself and my email.

I realized halfway through this, that urge to check email is directly connected to brain fatigue. In other words, it's just another way to space out or avoid hard work. Why waste any of that precious early morning caffeine time on email or any Internet vices?

Late in the afternoon, when the blood sugar dips, the temptation to check email or go online is still strong. Willpower weak. Maybe I'll have to invent a new challenge to address that!

How has the challenge worked for you, and how did you calculate your own success? So please, tell me how relieved you are that this is finally over and how much you accomplished a long the way. I'll be selecting names at random this week and announcing all winners next Sunday - so stay tuned!

Writers' Challenge Week FIVE

JAN: Okay, we are closing in on the end. I managed to write even while vacationing in a house right on the beach in Puerto Rico -- and I didn't check my email for three whole days. It was terrific.

I learned a trick to make myself write when I'm on vacation. I didn't bring my manuscript, which would have involved hauling along a lot of paper -- not just 250 pages of the manuscript, but also a critique from a writer friend. Instead, I decided to start an essay, and I told myself each morning that I didn't have to sell it. Didn't even have to show it to anyone.

And you know what? Writing didn't seem like work anymore. It seemed like this really fun thing I was doing every morning before I went to the beach.

This week I went back to the manuscript and got a lot done. I'm a third into what I hope is the final, final draft. Already new ideas for books are percolating -- a sure sign its time to move on.

After five weeks, I've gotten better about not checking the Internet in the morning, but I can revert to compulsive behavior later in the day. I'll have to devise a challenge for that someday.

Any ideas?

Writers Challenge Week Three

JAN: The challenge is getting harder for me for good reasons. Now I've really finished my draft and have it out with a trusted reader - which means not much to do besides a little tinkering here and there while I wait for critique. But I've been writing a lesson plan and exercises for a workshop I'm teaching in Providence, and I've started an essay. The goal, I've decided, is to keep writing no matter what.

The weird thing is this: I always expect to feel absolute joy when I write "The End," but oddly, I don't. I feel a fleeting sense of accomplishment, but it's followed by a weird sense of emptiness and loss.

All those things I've wanted to do and looked so inviting when I was still working on the novel, suddenly seem drab now that I have the time do them. I miss my characters and that quirky little world they inhabit.

Lucky I'm going on vacation Monday -- yes, I'll be bringing my IPAD and keyboard accessory with me and hoping that PAGES Ap works and translates back to my Word files when I get back home. I'll do my best to write 45 minutes before checking my email, but frankly I think the other temptations -- swimming, tennis and pretty rum drinks -- may be my undoing.

Rosemary will be filling in for me next Sunday, but I'll try to check into the comments page late on Sunday and let you all know just how disciplined I may or may not be when tempted by the Caribbean blue ocean.

So tell me everyone -- how was your week THREE? And aside from email and the Internet -- what's your toughest distraction?

Writers' Challenge 2011

JAN: Okay, you've had your holidays, your stuffed turkey, eggnog and New Year's champagne. Now it's time to get back in shape -- writing wise.

Maybe the rest of you are adults who can discipline yourselves, but not me, I'm a teenager at heart and NEED peer pressure. So here it is: a new SIX-WEEK WRITERS' CHALLENGE. In some ways, just like the Writers' Challenge that was so popular last summer. in other ways changed.

Here's how it's the same: There will be prizes.

Here's how it's different: This time we're awarding three signed ARCS -- that's right, hot off the presses ARCS of soon to be bestselling mysteries from Julia Spencer Fleming, (One Was a Soldier), Hallie Ephron (Come and Find Me ) and Rhys Bowen (Bless The Bride). As if that weren't enough, we also have a signed, out-of-print hardcopy of Deborah Crombie's Now May You Weep, and a copy of Drive Time, the last in Hank Phillippi Ryan's award-winning Charlie McNally series.

Here's what else is the same:

Because the seductive nature of the Internet must be repelled at all costs, and because the hardest part of writing is getting started, you MUST put off opening your email or checking whatever else you habitually, maybe even neurotically, check before writing. It doesn't matter if you write in the morning, or late afternoon or evening when you get back from work. You have to start writing BEFORE you go online.

Here's what else is different.

In the last challenge, you had to write a page a day before checking the Internet. In this challenge, you have to stay at your computer, focused and working, for a solid 45 minutes before you check the Internet.

What happened to the page quota? Last time, there were a lot of people who weren't working on first drafts. They were revising. Or writing synopsis. Or plotting out character growth. It was hard for them to get excited by one page.

Just like last time, the point is not to limit yourself to one page or 45 minutes. The point is to use that 45 minutes to trick yourself into getting started. We're happy if you're one of those thousand word-a-day people (HANK), but we're also thrilled if you are making those time consuming mental break-throughs, or pushing through the torture of a synopsis or diligently rewriting chapters.

Here's something else that's different. I'm taking pity on you. I'm giving you ONE DAY off a week. Saturday, Sunday, maybe a Wednesday snow day. Take it, guilt free. You're allowed.

Participants must sign up on the comments page anytime this week. But besides your first name, please give us an identifying last name initial or a nickname, especially if you have a popular name, say like Laura or Jennifer or especially KATE. When we count comments and award prizes we need to know which uniquely individual Laura, Jennifer or Kate you are.

You must join me on Sundays to check in on progress and comment at least three out of the six Sunday blogs. From that pool, three names will be drawn at random, and prizes assigned. There will also be a prize for most inspirational, and most-honest.

Come on everybody, be courageous. Take the plunge. Sign up. The only thing you have to lose is wasted time.

(You can also follow us during the week on Twitter, search for: #JRWRITEFIRST.)

Email Addiction Revisited

JAN: This is how sick I am. These statistics about email comforted me. At least at first. They come from a 2010 AOL survey, which I discovered through PSYBLOG - which is my favorite blog.

1) .59 per cent of recipients say they check email from the bathroom.

Yes, their bathroom. Just for the record, I have NEVER checked email from my bathroom. I think it's probably only the hygiene thing holding me back.

The reason email is so addictive, according to Psyblog is "variable-interval reinforcement" which is a complicated way of saying --even though most email we receive runs from boring to downright irritating, we get enough sporadic "exciting" emails to make us keep checking. We're hoping for that high moment.

2) 47% claim to be hooked on it, 25% of people can't go without email for more than 3 days, and 60% check email on vacation.

Guilty as charged. Always on vacation. Even in France when I had to spend money at an Internet Cafe. And really, is there anyone with email who goes three days without checking it?

3) You check email even more than you THINK you check email. Participants in a study by Renaud et al. (2006) claimed to check their email, on average, once an hour. However when the researchers spied on them, it turned out they checked their email every five minutes.

4.) Email eats a quarter of the working day

In a 2004 diary study (Czerwinski et al) of people in various different occupations. researchers found that, on average, people spent 23% of their working day dealing with email.

Okay, now I'm not so comforted. Now I'm realizing how much time I waste.

5.) It takes 64 seconds to recover your train of thought after an email interruption.

So in other words, all the time I spend meditating and doing yoga to enhance creativity, is blown once I start checking my email.

My solution, of course, is to Write First. Because once I start checking email, I fall into all the bad habits mentioned above.

So come on everyone, confess. Do we have any bathroom email checkers here?? Any five minute interval checkers?? Or do you now feel so much better about your email addiction because everyone else is worse??

Writers Challenge VI

JAN: Well, I'm finally back home and oddly thrilled at the cooler weather and to be working at my own desk again.

I'm deeply immersed in my non-fiction book proposal, which has meant fewer new pages and many more rewritten pages, so I'm not sure how to keep count anymore. But what's important to me is my attitude. The new energy I've gotten from writing every day.

What I'm taking away from the Write First challenge is this: I'm going to keep writing every day, even the weekends. At least a page a day. I've also learned that Internet isn't really a problem for me, After next Sunday, I'm going to go back to allowing work interruptions for online research if I need to. (Is this a relief, Jim? )

But I'm going to stick with no email -- for me until 1 p.m. I'm really a hardcore addict. Once I start, I can't stop. And I'm going to be blogging about research into email addiction the week of October 4th on Jungle Red.

I will be announcing the official winners of the Write First Challenge next Sunday, September 19th - which I think might be a day earlier than I promised. I say "official winners" because I think a lot of us are winners, especially me. Aside from the new lease on my writing life, I've thoroughly enjoyed hearing from all of you - your struggles, your successes and your cheating.

I feel like I have all these new writing friends, and I hope to meet as many of you in person as I can. If not the New England Crime Bake this November, surely at another writers conference or at one of your book signings.

In the meantime, tell me: What parts of the challenge will you keep, if any?? What's the first thing you'd like to ditch?

Promises, promises...that we make to ourselves

So, it's that time again for New Year's resolutions.
[Imagine picture of list and gorgeous woman writing...picture upload ain't working again today.]

Hallie: The US Government, bless it, has a place on its web site for "popular New Year's resolutions" -- where these come from I have no idea, since as far as I know Uncle Sam hasn't been snooping in my desk drawer where I keep my resolutions from year's past (which, like Scrooge's ghost, returns to haunt me.)

They're about what you'd expect, taking aim at excess weight, debt, and lousy eating habits, and promising to be a kinder and gentler and more generous soul. All to the good.

But writers have their own set of promises to make or break... Mine are:
- To write 500 words a day
- To check the NY Times, CNN, and Huffington Post no more than three times a day
- To only look at the stock market ticker after 4:30 PM
- To slay adverbs and purple prose
- To finish the book
- To celebrate every triumph, and squelch complaints about the publishing business
- To support my fellow writers

And if I could pick JUST ONE:
- To check email only after I've written at least 100 new words and no more than five times a day

Which dragons are you slaying this year, and what's #1?

Jan: Hallie, you've already taken my number#1 resolution: To not check email until I've made my page count: five a day. I'm convinced that I've given myself Attenion Deficit Disorder by checking my email instead of staying with whatever writing problem I'm trying to solve.

My other goals?
- To finish the screenplay by the end of February and the book proposal by March. (writing)
- To stop Googling for reviews.
- To finish my Rosetta Stone program
- To practice the guitar more
- To improve my slice and lob (tennis)
- To purge every last grievance

And even before New Year's, I'm trying to make a critical change. I'm in Day 3 of recovery of my Freecell addiction. It's one day at a time....

Rhys: My resolutions this year? To take time to smell the roses. I find my life is taken over by work. I have worked my tail off for several years on publicity and promotion, as well as writing, of course, and in the end has it really done that much for me? Okay, so it's moved me a few steps up the ladder in the book world but it has meant that my life has been put on hold. I haven't had time to paint, which I love doing, or to play my Celtic harp or just to go and be by myself in the middle of nature. So this year my goal is to prioritize and learn to say no. I was born wanting to be the good child and to please. This year I will learn that I don't always have to be perfect--that trying to be perfect comes with a physical price. So I will laugh a lot, hang out with people who make me laugh, and not waste time checking my Amazon stats daily.

Hank: Things. I think this year maybe about "things." Not getting a lot of new ones, and getting rid of the old ones. In the past few days, I've tossed bags and bags and bags and bags of things (and sent bags and bags and bags of things to charity.) I've cleaned out drawers and discovered stuff that--I'm not kidding--I've never seen. Which means it was put there before Jonathan and I got married. Which was 12 years ago.

I threw away blank stationery from Rolling Stone magazine, circa 1974 and also blank stationery from my days as a US Senate Staffer. Circa 1971. Baskets of old shells, "memories" from beaches but I don't remember where. Bags of--bags. Weird ceramic bowls. Magazines I'm not mentioned in, that I can find. in. Old software. Tape cassettes. What was it all? I can't even remember.

Why did I save this many things? Sometimes I think it was to prove good things happened to me, that I had wonderful experiences or good luck.

Some mementoes, of course, are sweet and nostalgic. The ones I remembered what they were? I saved. The script of my very first news story. Like that.

But I think I'm going to
1. Try harder to live in the moment. And not try to hold onto too much junk that means the past. The future is so exciting.
2. Write--better. (Next year, when this will also be my resolution, it'll be so clever and insightful.) (And to get my new proposals in by March.)
3. I already know I'm lucky. I'm already grateful for that every day. So, I resolve to stay that way. Happy new year, my dear Jungle Reds.

Roberta: Have more fun with folks I love, quit wasting time on stuff I can't control (Amazon stats just one dumb example,) write something different that stretches my mystery-writing muscles. Try to shrug the evil tendrils of envy that spring up unbidden when I'm not looking:)

RO: As usual my far more experienced, and quicker with their send buttons, JR sisters, have already said most of what I would have said although my Rosetta Stone fantasy is Swahili and I'm considering driving to Hank's to poke through her bags of discards since I love everything she wears or carries..
I just want to use my time well, whatever that means, every single day. Some days it may mean writing until four in the morning, others days it's sharing a pizza and a bottle of wine with a friend I haven't seen in ages.
This year(2008)for some reason, we have an extra second. I hope I don't waste it.

Hallie: Okay, folks. Spill. What are your resolutions for 2009 and what's your #1? Are you looking to get more done, to disencumber yourself from objects or grudges, or just slow down and laissez les bontemps roule?