Happy New Year! Happy 2018, dear readers!

Well, can you believe it? We’ve made it to the start of another year. Another 365 days around the sun to do some things. It’s exciting and terrifying. Like a new journal with 365 pages and we have to come up with something awesome to do. That’s a lot of pressure to make something wonderful, important. You know, not to waste the year just by having fun. But I think having fun is part of the point of creating, instead of trying to compete with people’s perfect Instagram or Twitter posts.

So what are you planning to do this year? What do you want to accomplish with your art or work or anything in between?

I always have super-audacious plans. Always. And I don’t accomplish all of it, even if I get a lot done. I seem to think that there are always more hours in the day than 24 and that I’ll never get sick or burned out or tired. But life has a way of bringing a reality check to any plans. However, I try not to let that get me down.

So what am I planning on doing this year?

I’m going to do a lot more calligraphy for the sheer joy of it (and because it’s important to remember that not every hobby has to become a hustle). I received some amazing gifts of new ink, nibs, and a whole ream of practice paper for Christmas and am looking forward to practicing and creating beautiful writing. I’ll probably share some photos, too, but I’m doing it for the joy of it and not for any hustle.

I’m going to continue writing with intention (check out Chuck Wendig’s post on this for inspiration). I’m still writing the first draft of what I started before NaNoWriMo and worked on through November (in between travel and getting a truly awful cold) and I’m hoping it will wrap itself up in the first couple of months of the year so I can let it sit and I can revise it later in the year. It’s the slowest I’ve written a first draft, but I also feel it is probably the most intentional writing I’ve done in fiction, too. It’s been frustrating sometimes to write slowly, but it feels like the words are coming out better, truer, with meaning. I’ll let you know how it looks once I get into the revising.

But I want to continue writing with intention, even if it is slower. I’m going to continue writing Saturday Shorts, which feed my need to play with fiction writing and satisfy my desire to complete a project. I hope you’ll continue reading them and hopefully enjoying them.

I want to read more books this year. I keep track of the books I read throughout the year and books I want to read. I have a healthy list and will hopefully get to read a lot of them in the coming weeks. I may share some thoughts on them from time to time and hope you’ll share books you love with others, too.

I’m looking forward to a year of continued creativity and art, with work and activism knit up into it all, too. Plus many cups of tea, naps in the sun with my husband and cat, talks with dear friends, and some travel for inspiration, too.

I hope you have a wonderful plan for 2018 that brings a smile to your face and keeps you buoyed through the inevitable difficulties of life that lay ahead for us all. I hope you have a supportive community, full of friends and family, that keeps you going. And I hope this year we make the world a better place in anyway we can. As Desmond Tutu wrote, “Each time we choose good, we add to the human treasury of goodness.” And that’s something I think we can resolve to do in our art and life. Let’s increase goodness in the world this year. That’s a plan worth resolving to accomplish.

Happy new year, dear readers. 🙂