It is fitting that I should post a New Year’s Day post on the second of January. The first, which I am sure many people spent hungover anyway, has passed, and it has sunk in now that the new year has time to get a little comfortable. Besides, it is a leisurely time of year, and as always I am both forgetful and plagued by procrastination. In fact I don’t even want to be writing this right now. I’d much rather be playing Skyrim. But then I’d put it off, and put it off, and it’d be January 17th and a New Year’s post would just seem weird and out of place.
2015 brings new magazine and journal submissions to consider and new themes to which one may write. JAAM‘s theme for this year’s edition is “Small Departures” which I rather like. I’ll have to sketch out some ideas in my idea-sketching notebook. (I have too many notebooks, so I keep one just for playing with lines and ideas.) And I have an older piece that might fit the theme as well. I knew I was hesitating from posting that one here for a reason.
I like the new year. It always makes me feel creative, in one way or another. This year I have a smart new planner and inserts on sparkling white 100gsm paper. I’m enjoying myself playing with stamps and coloured pencils and washi tape. Along with the general resolutions to get more exercise and read more books is the necessity of writing more. I want to be posting on here on a more regular schedule – once a week, at least, and preferably on the same day though I doubt that’ll happen, let’s be honest with ourselves. I’m thinking a Tuesday. If I’m sensible and get lots of things written I can even arrange for them to post on Tuesday so I don’t have to worry about remembering. Yes, yes, laugh if you must. Managing to do things ahead of time is unlikely. But writing every day, or as near as can be achieved, that’s something I want. I want a rhythm to my day, and I want it to involve exercise, fresh fruit, and writing. Last year I had weekly to-do lists, which is better than 2013, but it’s not too often I achieved everything on them. Little steps, though, friends. We shape our lives slowly over time.
Last year, I set up this website. Not in January. In fact I can’t even remember when it was, now. I am sure I’ll remember when the hosting company sends me a bill for the next year of hosting. (Hi, Dreamhost!) But whenever it was, I set it up, I made some decisions, I took some steps along the road of becoming someone who might one day be a Professional Writer. So in that wise, 2014 was Good. In many other ways 2014 was a kick in the crotch, for a lot of us, so I am taking my successes where I can, and clutching them to me in clawed, trembling hands.
Filled with the determination that This Year Will Be Better I remain
your humble scrivener,
Sophie