New Year, New Hopes by Allison Symes

Image Credits:  Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay images

Firstly, may I wish you a Happy New Year and to say I hope your writing plans go well in 2025.

 

The New Year, and the period leading to it, is a time for reflection on the last twelve months and what we would like to see happen in the next twelve. That doesn’t just apply to our writing. 

 

I think it is a good idea to take time out to evaluate where we are at writing wise and to work out what our next steps will be. Setting goals at all means you are more likely to achieve them even if you take baby steps. Those baby steps are not such a bad thing. Each step forward means progress. Little progresses mount up over time.

 

And noting that kind of progress (a story online here, a letter in print there, getting a piece of writing done ready for editing and all sorts of writing things) is a wonderful counter argument to the insidious whispers from whatever is responsible for Imposter Syndrome.

So the New Year is a time for new hopes, including new writing ones. I don’t set New Year Resolutions. They’re like promises and I think that can put too much pressure on yourself. Also, I remember my late mother always saying promises were like pastry crusts - made to be broken! 

But setting goals and working out ways to achieve them, that’s fine. I can tick them off as I go. The ticking off makes me feel good too.

There are certain things I do like to do throughout the writing year so when I get my new diary, I put those in immediately. It makes it easier for me to plan other writing projects around these. It is an odd thing but writing something down like this does mean it is more likely I will do it. I have no idea why that is, whether the act of writing something down makes it feel more real, but I know it works.

Having smaller writing tasks is useful for those times when you know you are going to be too busy for anything else. This is one thing I love about flash fiction. When life is especially busy, I know I can still take fifteen minutes to draft a quick flash piece. Just doing something creative for fifteen minutes does wonders for me - and I’ve got another story drafted.

So why not write down somewhere what you would like to do writing wise in 2025? As the New Year goes on, you will find things change and, yes, life can get in the way but plans can develop and change. You’re not setting something in stone here. 

And if you achieve some of the writing things you’ve written down, brilliant. I’ve accepted I won’t achieve all of mine in one year but I can make good progress on a lot of them in the time and that’s fine.

Do have a happy writing New Year!