January: A blank page filled with potential

For last year’s words belong to last year’s language

And next year’s words await another voice.

And to make an end is to make a beginning.

(Little Gidding) T.E. Eliot

New Year is a time when we reflect on the previous year and make resolutions or plans for the next. As a writer, I imagine the New Year as a blank page, one to be filled with potential stories, ideas, and characters that will form into a new work.

The New Year is a time for making plans. It’s a time to find the potential in ourselves and in the opportunities that are presented to fulfil our hopes, dreams and prayers.

I step into a New Year with anticipation and hope, with a desire to keep learning, writing, loving, praying, and changing. I don’t want to be the same as I was this year—or the year before. I feel like I’m in a re-formation as I question, interrogate and search myself in an atmosphere of faith, hope and love at the turn of the year.

On January First, my husband and I review each and every day of the previous year.  We grade each day and make some observations. What did we enjoy? What should we do more of in future? What should we do less of in future?

Then, we make appointments for the coming year.

Make Appointments

We get a wall planner and schedule in important dates we know. Weddings, birthdays, work commitments, trips and so on.

As a writer, it’s important to make time for our craft. So I schedule time every day or week or month. I book in a retreat or two to write. Even if it’s only in a café once a week, I book time for writing.

My time now is often taken up with appointments with people wanting to write, volunteer time, family, friends, and household responsibilities. And travel, of course. Normally, we have three months of the year on the road and this is not often conducive to writing–it’s inspiring, but not easy to write.

Covid has enforced time at home but complicated it in other ways. 2022 looks like being a return to some normality and, at the same time, a new normal. 

Make Priorities

Instead of New Year Resolutions, I decide what my ‘before all elses’ are.

What are my priorities? My key priorities are family, spirituality, friendships, work, physical goals, and writing. 

I write down all the main areas of my life: family, friends, work, writing etc and then write a list under each of those of my overarching goals are for the year. This helps to clarify why these are important. The specifics are where we see progress. 

Log Your Hours

Jim Collins, author of Good to Great,  tries to log one thousand hours of deep creative time every 365 days.  He says, there’s no rule about how many you get in a day. He says, there’s no rule about how many you get in a day. Sometimes there’s zero and sometimes days can be a nine or 10. It doesn’t matter if he’s sick, it doesn’t matter if he wants to do other stuff–Collins keeps 1,000 creative hours a year as a minimum baseline. 

The number isn’t important, but the overall objective is that over time there’s quality work. Creative hours lead to some kind of creative output–whether it’s research or writing or thinking–it’s leading towards producing something. 

I only have so much energy and time to give to people and my work. Squeezing in writing around other stuff had taken me away from my first love. My #BAE.

When you’re in a new relationship, you want to spend all your time with that person and you will put other things off to be with them.

Do you remember your first loves? The first time you met your partner? Those early days of dating?

I was ten years old when I wrote a story after a school excursion. I’ll never forget the feeling of words flowing from my head, through my body, through the pen onto paper. I’ll never forget the physical mark of the pen on my hand. I’ll never forget the mark on my soul.

I’ll never forget the day I first dreamed of being a writer.

As I grow older and time becomes more precious, I’m returning to my first loves. My biggest, best yeses will be framed by my list of #BAE’s.

The Bible contains much wisdom and some of my favourite words are: But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

These words encourage us to put the important things first. What are your BAE’s? 

Theory of Planned Behaviour

According to the Theory of Planned Behaviour, there’s a correlation between our intention to perform a behaviour and what we actually do. 

If I plan something and put it in my diary, I will do my best to do it. One of the lessons I’ve learnt in my writing life is that writing needs to be planned as well as spontaneous. 

At this time of the year when we perhaps set goals or make resolutions for the New Year, it’s easy to just trot out the same old stuff only to get to the end of the year and find we haven’t achieved as much as we thought we would.

Making appointments with yourself is important. Listing your BAE’s and writing goals gives clarity. Planned behaviour means that dreams and hopes become actions. Just dreaming something doesn’t cut it.

What are some of your plans for the New Year? Do you have a dedicated process to help you review the previous year and plan for the new one?