January 18, 2024, 7 a.m.
Ah, January is the month of beating yourself up for not accomplishing more last year and setting unrealistic goals for the coming year. Rather than repeat that depressing cycle, I’m taking a more sanguine view. Here’s some of what I’m celebrating, what I’m looking forward to, and what’s “out” for me in 2024.
Celebrating
- Completing The Writer’s Studio program at SFU (2023 Fiction & Hybrid Forms with Leanne Dunic)
- All the writers I met in TWS! And the connections made! Workshops were a joy because I learned so much from everyone and enjoyed getting to know them.
- I’ve always wanted to take time to focus on my writing. It was beautiful to do something for myself.
- Getting published! Poems in Poetry Pause and an excerpt from one of my stories in emerge 23: The Writer’s Studio Anthology, available on Amazon here: https://a.co/d/7PZNIbi
- Rejections! Rejections mean I had the courage to submit my writing.
- Volunteering & learning as a copy editor on the book production team for the annual anthology from TWS: emerge 23.
- All the little things that brought joy: moments with my family, bird watching, long walks, getting back into running.
- Having a great team at work and a job & career I love. Something has to pay the bills, and right now, it isn’t my writing!
- The other great literary events I was able to attend:
- Mapping the Wilds of Grief with instructor Katrina Goldsaito, online from Hedgebrook
- After Apocalypse: Emergence, with Renee Harper, in person at the Cold War Bunker Museum in Nelson (part of the annual Elephant Mountain Literary Festival)
- The Magic of Memory 2: an online workshop by instructor and fabulous local writer Rayya Liebich via Oxygen Arts Centre.
Anticipating
- More writing and revisions and submitting and, hopefully, getting published.
- Working on my manuscript with Susan Andrews Grace.
- Continuing to work with my TWS workshop group.
- Staying connected in the writing community.
- Stillness, quiet, and enjoying the good things around me.
- Nature journaling – I bought a new sketchbook & watercolour field set and have enrolled in a course by Liz Clayton Fuller at The Cornell Lab Bird Academy.
- More workshops and literary events through the Federation of BC Writers and others.
- Looking after myself and staying healthy & well – I’m training for a 10 km walk event.
- Simplifying and streamlining my focus – no new resolutions, just continuing with my long-term goals.
- Vacations and writing research trips. I’m also saving for a walking/hiking tour vacation in 2025.
Out
- Distractions: cell phone, mindless social media, shopping for more notebooks.
- New notebooks (I need to say this twice).
- Rushing through things
- Junk
- Negativity
- Blurry binoculars
Gwen Higgins 