Thanks, y’all, for playing along in the win-a-Romi book! Drum roll, please…. The randomly drawn winner is Grace who liked the Bright Moments cardigan! Grace, you’ve been emailed!
And Happy New Year to everyone! I’d do a recap, but you know what? For once I don’t want to. 2015 was a bit of a slog. I’m not sad to boot it out the door. I’m already feeling a tingling in my toes that says 2016 will do things worth dancing about.
Without making resolutions (because come on, the only reason to make one is to break one), I’ve actually been able to journal every day this year so far. It’s the one thing I’d really like to make into a habit, so I’m keeping it light. Just a paragraph or two, entered in a Word document on my computer. I’m so tired of trying to figure out how to store my old journals, and while I write a lot in my paper journal (with my Livescribe pen! Which is awesome but honestly not that practical for my lifestyle, I have to admit) it’s mostly lists and illegible scrawls.
I’ve been so inspired by reading The Folded Clock: A Diary by Hedi Julavits.* It’s a collection of journal snippets that read as somehow more than just that. Eula Bliss says of it: “This diary is a record of the interior weather of an adept thinker.” Exactly so. And I adore the idea of keeping a journal that holds actual, concrete memories–short, but well described moments in time. I thought to myself it was as if she sat down every night and fictionalized a moment in her day. My next thought was I could do that.
I could.
I’m a writer, after all.
Sometimes that thought still gives me thrills. Okay, it often gives me thrills, not just sometimes. I am a writer. I just finished a draft of my first Patreon essay, and I’m happy with it. I got to a (real) point and unraveled something I truly believe within its pages, and that’s where I love writing best–when I can dive down deep and get confused and talk to myself and come up with something real. It’s twenty-two pages! It’s about liars and thieves, and how artists are both, but benevolently so, and I’m terrified about it. Dude, I swear I catch imposter syndrome like it’s airborne. (Speaking of that, I abandoned the lovely Station Eleven — god, for some of you, Alzheimer’s is your greatest fear, and for that, I apologize for Splinters of Light. But pandemic is one of my greatest fears, and while all of you were right — the book is not about that, not really — the plot is so closely and inextricably related to pandemic that even after my sister told me the ending, I’m still having nightmares a week later. Sensitive flower alert. It’s so good! But not for me.)
Anyway. Back to more polishing and then I’ll be sending it out today or tomorrow. (There’s still time to get your own copy by pledging a tip of your choice per essay, or you can read it in the collection next year.)
And to you: I wish you only resolutions that say things like, “Sleep more” and “Hug people” and if you want to break those, too, then I give you absolution *makes the sign of a chocolate croissant over your head*
Kiss.
* Affiliate link because mama needs a yard or two more yarn
Yay! Looking forward to the essay! I love the thought of “described moments in time”. I am just about ending my latest “photo a day” album. The last day of the album is today, and tomorrow I start all over again with a new one. Kind of weird they don’t go from Jan 1- Dec 31, but it’s still a year ( Jan 6 – Jan 5) and it’s just how I set them up in the beginning. One photo, a caption underneath, 8 photos per page with the shutterfly layout, and then I have it printed when my year is done. I love returning to these albums and looking at the captured moments. Happy New Year!
I am just starting my second full year with my Hobonichi planner. It’s a Japanese page-a-day planner, and it’s got this huge cult following, but the important part to me is that it somehow clicks into the part of me that wants to write in it. So I plan my day, my to-do list, and then I fill the rest of the page with notes about the day, doodles, and stickers and washi tape. It started as a way to make my to-do list fun, but it’s become so much more!
I loved Station Eleven and it’s totally not my kind of book. But I get that it wouldn’t be a good thing to read if you have pandemic fears. Can’t wait to read the essay!
One of the compelling things about Station Eleven for me was how close and plausible it felt. Super scary if pandemic is one of your fears! It scared me too and is still rolling around in my head; I think many of us feel big changes on the way whether it’s the climate changes, the political situation in the US, global economic shakiness, the surge of knowledge among white folks about the terrible racism built into our society and culture . . . Hard to know how it’s all going to play out but I am conscious all the time of how thin the veneer is, the world we think is solid and real could be swept away in a moment. Station Eleven brought that home compellingly. I can see why you would have to stop reading it.
The other thing that fascinated me about the book was that it was such a science-fictional premise but written by a “literary” novelist. Not the first time for that, I know, and the genre line is blurry anyway but as someone who’s read a lot of speculative fiction, I was really aware of the parts of the world-building that she just walked away from, the questions she avoided without a backwards look, that I think most speculative fiction authors would have felt obliged to address. Her interest was the emotional truth, the relationships, and the rest only existed to make those work. There were things about her world that I didn’t quite believe in, aspects of the staging that didn’t feel true if you poked them–but I didn’t think the story suffered because the attention of the book was so clearly elsewhere. Most readers wouldn’t notice, I think–it’s only because I have read so much in the genre that I was even noticing the difference. I don’t know if that makes sense but it was striking to me.
I’ve just started a Bullet Journal, which so far I love. It’s a paper method, and it’s got two things I really like: minimalism, and complete creative control. Apparently this is a really big thing I’m just finding out about? It’s main use is “rapid logging,” or a quick note-style jotting down of…stuff. Things you need to do today, things you need to do this week, things you ate, books you read, people to visit, savings goals, anything and everything. It’s intended to be more planner than journal, but you can absolutely choose to write proper journal entries. And people get crazy with the decorating and colored pens and stuff. It definitely appeals to my OCD side 🙂
Happy New Year! May your 2016 be awesome 🙂