New Year's resolutions get a bad press. You often hear people say that the chances of you sticking to them are so slim that you may as well not bother. But I made one in 1997 that I'm still sticking to: to be a cartoonist.
I've dabbled in cartooning as long as I can remember, but it was at the beginning of 1997 that I decided I would draw regularly and keep posting batches of cartoons out to magazines. Within a few months I was getting published. Of course, I still had a day job and it was a few years before I became a full-time cartoonist, but it was that New Year's resolution that got the ball rolling.
I suppose the key to sticking to a resolution is to pick something positive, which that was. I'd decided I was going to do something, rather than stop doing something. Having said that, my resolution this year (there's just the one, let's not get carried away) falls into the latter camp.
Remember that Simpsons scene where Homer tells Bart to get back to the dinner table, then the voice in his head says, "What are you doing, you fool, that food could be ours!"? Yep, my resolution is to stop finishing off my kids' meals when they leave food on their plates! Five days in, I'm holding up OK. And now I've committed it to the blog I'll have to stick to it.
Royston's portfolio website