January 2024 Recap
We made it through the first month of the year! That feels like a major accomplishment because January contained a lot of frenetic energy. It seems as if most of the energy has disappeared now that February is here, but I’m staying on guard for any lingering chaos.
I spent most of January preparing for my last semester of library school. I’m counting down the weeks until I turn in my last assignment and celebrate my achievements with my loved ones. When I first enrolled in the program, I wanted to graduate with as many A’s as possible. But now, I just want to graduate and I’m not overly concerned with pouring all of my energy into my assignments. Of course, I’m submitting quality work and earning top grades. But I can see the finish line and all I care about is crossing it.
That is enough about school. Let’s talk about writing.
One of my favorite podcasts right now is Creative Pep Talk by Andy J. Pizza. If you are a creative, no matter what your creative outlet is, I suggest listening to a few episodes. It has changed my creative practice for the better. But for the month of January, the episodes focused on dreams, maintaining a dreamy state and how dreams can impact our creative selves. In the first episode of the new year, 435- How to Dream Again When You’re Tired and Unready for the New Year, Andy said:
“We’re gonna be dreaming all month. We have the time. I think the fact that we are in such a dramatically different place means that we need more time and space to allow ourselves to dream. It’s okay if you didn’t start January feeling energized. And focused. I don’t think anybody feels like that after the kind of crash lands that we have all experienced.”
I heeded Andy’s advice and spent most of January turning inward. That meant more journaling. More self-reflection. More discovery and chipping away at creative projects.
I worked on my world-building project: The Golden Sea. And I even shared it with some trusted friends. It is amazing how fruitful this experience can be when I tap into my own interests and desires. I have several articles that I’m working on for this project and I see more pieces click into place every time I open up my World Anvil profile. This project became my stress relief when I became overwhelmed with work and school.
I still don’t have a novel idea for this project. But there are wisps of a story that I’m following. One of my biggest dreams is to write an epic fantasy. It is the genre that first got me into reading and writing and I am itching to tell the queer, Black, fat-positive epic fantasy that is within me.
I think I want to extend that dreamlike state into February. I will continue with my world-building, but I also want to make space for my witch family novel that I attempted to draft during last year’s NaNoWriMo.
I want to focus on building an outline. Not a rigid outline that is limiting. But an outline that provides a steady frame to build upon. This month I am focusing on the major characters and the magic system. I don’t have solid plans, but I hope to spend May-August drafting the novel. I have a sense of how this novel will turn out and I’m excited to finally devote some time and energy towards it.
One final point/recommendation: I am nearly finished with my first reading of Ursula K. Le Guin’s collection of essays Dancing at the Edge of the World. I think she’s brilliant and thoughtful and I want to read any and everything she has ever created. Her essays on writing made me think deeply about the process in a way I haven’t done since earning my MFA. Here are a few quotes that stood out to me and in parenthesis the essay or speech where it came from in case you wish to read it:
“People crave objectivity because to be subjective is to be embodied, to be a body, vulnerable, violable.” (Bryn Mawr Commencement Address)
“A novel is a medicine bundle, holding things in a particular, powerful relation to one another and to us.” (The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction)
“Let women die old, white-crowned, with human hearts.” (The Space Crone)
“A sacrifice, not of somebody else but of oneself, is demanded of women artists (while the Gauguin Pose demands of men artists only that they sacrifice others). I am proposing that this ban on woman artist’s full sexuality is harmful not only to the women but to the art.” (The Fisherwoman’s Daughter)
There are other sections that stood out to me and I’m sure I will see more when I read this again. A lot of people hold Stephen King’s On Writing as the pinnacle of books on writing and as much as I agree with this sentiment, I firmly believe Ursula K. Le Guin should also receive a lot of attention for her thoughts of writing. Most of the essays were written in the 60s, 70s and 80s, but they feel strangely modern. I’m sure a lot of her thoughts will slip into my subconscious. But I also want to intentionally incorporate her comments into my writing process and future drafts. Like Le Guin said in her Bryn Mawr speech:
“We are volcanoes. When we women offer our experience as our truth, as human truth, all the maps change. There are new mountains.”
For February, I hope you also continue to dream and go inward. Find reflection tools that work for you and imagine the world you want to live in! Until next time.
