Celebrating Yourself and Your Creativity

Happy new year! Thanks for being part of my writing community. Here are some extra ideas for you to make your new writing year the best yet.

Photo by Joyce G on Unsplash

Here in New England, we’re in full holiday/winter celebration mode. Maybe it’s the fight back against the early dark this time of year or maybe it’s the warmth of holiday gatherings. Today I’m with a small group of good friends, making new year’s collages. It’s a great way to review the past year and welcome the new.

I put a box of precut images (from old magazines and Internet printouts) on the big table, with scissors, glue and glue sticks, and poster board or blank cards. Some friends bring their journals.

They aren’t all writers. We are five musicians, a painter, a tech guy and a self-confessed nerd, a writer or two. Everyone is creative and open to the more woo aspects of spirituality, which collage-making can fall into. We don’t talk too much about what we’re doing; we just sit and create.

The musicians take breaks to play for us, live background music. We have food waiting—I love to cook for these gatherings and everyone brings something to contribute. Today we’ll have roast chicken stuffed with lemons and garlic, a curried rice pilaf, a huge green salad with homemade dressing, good breads (gluten free and regular), asparagus, and two or three kinds of homemade desserts. Sometimes I joke with this group that we only invite those who can cook well and love to eat. We’re lucky that’s so.

The collage-making is annual inner work for me. I like to ask myself certain questions then let my eye rove over the images and create whatever comes. It’s very non-linear but the questions or seed ideas give an intention.

Some of the seed ideas and questions I’m using today (see my post from Friday for more questions to spark your collage):

A few things I most grateful for in my life right now.

What do I want to allow into my life in this new year?

Something I am ready to let go of.

I find it helpful to start with what works—the first seed idea—then move on to what I long for, dream about creating, want to work hard to bring forth and what might need to leave in order to make room for these new delights.

As I wrote about in Friday’s newsletter, that list is long for me this holiday: a new novel publishing in April (Last Bets), continued enthusiasm for the novel just published in October (A Woman’s Guide to Search & Rescue), good health, delightful travel in our camper, enjoyment of my family and community, and service.

What I’d like to let go of: the intensity and busyness of this past year as I launched a book—is this possible? Maybe I’ve learned enough, practiced enough, to do it easier this time? I want more sleep, more regular exercise (my beloved country walks near our home). I want more time: to read, paint, garden, and write to you in these newsletters.

As we sit around the table, we each may talk about what we’re collaging. We may share thoughts about the year ahead, and I may share these ideas that are coming forth. Or we may work silently, enjoying the music in the next room, the candles flickering in the windows as it gets dark (so early now!).

When it’s time, we’ll eat, light the pillar candles on the mantel, sing songs together, read poems or short essays about the season, just hang out.

I’m grateful to have a home that feels like a warm womb, that easily incubates this kind of future dreaming. Our house was built about 200 years ago, not unusual for this part of New England, and like most old farmhouses it comes with blessings of beauty and grace of form, and leaky walls and dust from a dirt basement. But during the holidays it shines in its perfect way.

I’ve decorated the empty window boxes and planters with balsam branches and fire berries by the front door. Our windows glow with candles (electric).

I hope your new year’s is full of goodness for your writing life, however that might manifest best for you. Try the collage this weekend if it calls to you.

Happy new year from me and Your Weekly Writing Exercise!