Every year when January 1 comes around, the needlessness of setting goals is shouted from the rooftops. But I, in a clandestine corner of my apartment, earnestly fill out a spreadsheet, organizing my resolutions for the year ahead. I’m not particularly affectionate toward spreadsheets, but the one benefit of jotting all this down digitally is that reappraising these ambitions is as simple as opening Google Drive. Glancing back at my objectives—which I make a habit of doing—can be a humorous exercise. Eat more fiber; read Middlemarch ; take self-defense classes. Very achievable, highly specific. Alas, there is one same goal threading through every spreadsheet that remains unattended to, taunting me with its perennial neglect: Write a screenplay.

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