resolution: a form of concentration

Oh yes it is.

I resolve in the coming year - and, dear readers, please assume that anything Ms B resolves to do in this series of resolutions has already entered her activity stream - to concentrate, across the spectrum of meaning for that word.

Last night I directed someone I don't really know to my blog and then suffered all the pangs of knowing it was being read. (Normally I only hope it's being read; there's a difference.) Naturally I went on too and read it, to try and imagine the experience. And what did I find? Verbiage. I resolve to concentrate that verbiage by remembering my editorial skills, and by being one flipping heck of a lot less self-indulgent! I resolve to try and eliminate the following mannerisms:
Well,
actually
However,
dependent clauses necessitating endless strings of commas
and all the other little qualifiers and intensifiers that you don't need if your words are doing their job properly. I'm all for Mannerism, but not all the time.

I further resolve to concentrate by having actual (see, I'm doing it again) content. You can't concentrate what you ain't got.

Furthermore, I resolve to concentrate by paying attention. I seem to have lost the ability to do more than skate over the surface of everything, and this is not making your correspondent happy.

I'd say I might resolve to concentrate my efforts, maybe attempt less, but I'm not sure that's possible. See below.

I will concentrate on poetry by starting an occasional series featuring the work of contemporary poets. Starting soon. How frequent this will be depends on how many contemporary poets I feel like asking, and whether they say yes.

I will concentrate on the other stuff by beginning another series which I intend to launch in a few weeks, called My Life in 99 Books. If I do one a week it will take me nearly two years.

I will concentrate more at work; the trials must be nearly over, I can hear the flutes warming up. There is no Sarastro (though there is still Sarastro); if I want spiritual inspiration I will have to do it myself.

And finally I resolve not to do everything by myself! To re-constitute the dramatis personae.