Around this time last year I wrote this post, little knowing what 2020 would bring. While many of us may have gone into 2020 full of hope, maintaining that hope throughout the year was a mammoth task. And yet, we’ve made it. You may be bruised and battered. You may have experienced loss and grief. Even if you personally escaped the worst that 2020 had to bring, none of us could avoid been touched by the effects of Covid-19, of civil and political unrest, of economic crisis.
But, here we are.
So, how are you? What are you hoping to get from this new year? What would you like see happen or change in the world?
My writing goal this year is to find my writing-joy. Somewhere over the last few years writing became a race I couldn’t win, and I want to get back to the pleasure that escaping into new worlds and building new characters used to bring me. I want to write for the sake of writing. Because I have ideas swirling around inside my head that have to be released.
My first step? To write for just half-an-hour every morning, and to focus for a while on short stories so I can get some (relatively) instant gratification.
I encourage us all to find some healing in the power of writing. You may never share what your write with others, but I don’t think there’s anything quite like getting your thoughts and feelings down on paper in whatever way they want to come.
So, here’s to 2021. No one can know what the future will bring, but whatever it is we can meet it and survive it. We might even learn to thrive in it.
