My 2012 New Year’s Resolution for the HiM Blog

I am mak­ing the fol­low­ing res­o­lu­tions for the year 2012 in regards to the Hyp­no­sis in Media blog:

1 ) Reading

I resolve to fin­ish read­ing at least one unread book a week from the Col­lec­tion. There are a lot of books in the col­lec­tion, fic­tion and non-fic­tion, that I haven’t even opened after I bought them. This is espe­cial­ly true about the non-fic­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly the late 19^th and ear­ly 20^th Cen­tu­ry stuff, which I am expect­ing to be very boring.

2 ) Writing

I resolve to increase my post writ­ing. I have a only cou­ple of blog posts already writ­ten and ready to pub­lish if I can’t get any­thing else done by the pub­li­ca­tion dead­line. I would like to have at least three times the num­ber I have now, which means not only research­ing and writ­ing the reg­u­lar post but a sec­ond or third one each week.

3 ) Research

a ) I resolve to seri­ous­ly start my research into the top­ic of the ori­gins of the vam­pire’s hyp­not­ic gaze. Its not in the orig­i­nal Stok­er but it was a part of vam­pire lore by the time of the Bela Lugosi “Drac­u­la”. I expect it is also strong­ly asso­ci­at­ed with the folk­lore of the “Evil Eye”. My effort will have to start with first tying down the first appear­ances of the sub­ject in the media, which will be dif­fi­cult as that may include stage per­for­mances (such time being before movies were wide­ly popular.)

b ) I resolve to con­tin­ue my research into the sub­ject of the var­i­ous social con­ven­tions that affect the suc­cess of hyp­not­ic induc­tions, with the even­tu­al goal of com­plet­ing the book I am cur­rent­ly writ­ing and even­tu­al­ly self-pub­li­ca­tion. I’ve already iden­ti­fied a very large (and diverse) num­ber of these con­ven­tions and my major task now is ade­quate­ly describ­ing them in such a way that can be applied by any prac­tic­ing hyp­no­tist. I do not expect to be able to fin­ish it this year but I hope to at least dou­ble the word count (now some­where around 35,000 words)  this year. Plus I want to get what I have writ­ten in the hands of peo­ple I can trust to review and cri­tique it as I write it.

5 ) Recreation

I resolve (and hope to able to afford) to attend a cou­ple of hyp­no­sis-relat­ed con­ven­tions and events this year, one that I have almost a stand­ing invi­ta­tion to attend and present at, and one of which I may actu­al­ly be asso­ci­at­ed with.

As part of these res­o­lu­tions, I also resolve to post peri­od­ic updates on how I am ful­fill­ing these oth­er resolutions.