Moving Forward - Writing after a reset by Elaine Langford

I often like to take time to reflect and reset around my birthday in mid-September. I take time to be grateful for welcome changes but also reflect on the reoccurring goals and desires that still seem too distant. I try to identify the blockers for these and how they can be addressed.

It’s felt like the last 18 months have been a time of review and reset. It’s a big birthday this year, so maybe that’s appropriate. We moved house in January 2024 which also meant I had to start the transfer of my medical support. Among that was an end of a short-term job and an autism diagnosis in February 2024. I started one job in July 2024 which ended February this year. Since then, I’ve been managing issues with our own house in Bristol that we had rented out. Navigating these changing circumstances have been challenging, so it’s no surprise that I cover some of this in my More Than Writers (MTW) posts in the last 14 months along with what is blocking my impetus to write poetry.

Thankfully August saw a shift for me on multiple fronts. I was offered another job, which I hope to start by the end of September. I began to re-engage with my poetry notes and work out how to organise them to help me pick up the existing scraps of ideas while adding new ones as they came to me. I’ve also mapped out some competitions to enter. A bonus was that I felt able to read other’s poetry. Previously I found it too painful to read words by others when I couldn’t write my own.

In August I was prompted to add the first post on my FaithBites blog since January 2024. Nearly two years ago, I launched into enthusiastic reflections on a Seven Sacred Spaces by Georghe Lings. The first was an overview of the book and I intended to review each space separately. However, this stopped in February 2024 after looking at just two spaces. I had added two posts recently to share links to my MTW posts just to show I was writing somewhere. The newest post, Working with sacred space as a reset, reviewed how most of the sacred spaces created an element of reset throughout the day. While some may consider the sacred space of Garden as a place of rest, Lings notes it is a place of work and serving others. Reflecting on this space, I realised that I needed a reset in my work of writing. I also noted that God delights in providing reset periods, such as Sabbath. However, I forgot to mention other periods of reset, such as Jubilee. Jubilee is supposed to be held every 50th year for economic, social, agricultural and spiritual reset. For example, contracts of debt are annulled, and the land is rested for a year to recover. While my personal Jubilee may be nine years later than it should have been, it is reassuring that taking breaks from work and commitments are within God’s plan.

Being asked to contribute guest posts to MTW for July and August last year and then take it on permanently from September helped me keep an eye on the way ahead while I worked through my period of reset. The expectation to post monthly helped me to focus on at least one piece of writing. Now I feel able to move forward in my writing and in these later stages of life. I aim to prepare a post for my Faith Bites blog while writing for MTW to maintain that impetus to complete that additional task. Whether I succeed in being productive with my poetry while getting used to working full time again will be something I can report on next month.

In the meantime, I’d love to hear if you have taken a reset in life or in your writing? Was it planned or unexpected? Do you set aside time, or a sacred space, in your day, week or year for rest, recovery and resets?

Elaine Langford is a writer is reset based in South East London. She has recently restarted posting on her blog, Faith Bites (when life bites, faith bites back).She is awaiting a restart on writing poetry and adding to her Poetry Puddles blog. She has welcomed two rescue cats, Simba and Benny and hopes to introduced them soon on her long-abandoned Mad Lamb blog. 

A year (and a bit) of More Than Writers posts

2024 July - How dusty is your Library card?

2024 August - Rearranging Furniture

2024 September - Motivations to Write

2024 October – Planning a writing route – Are we there yet?

2024 November – Writing Priorities – What comes First?

2024 December – Christmas is coming, ready or not.

2025 January – Ringing in the New

2025 February – Changing The Narrative – Learning to Sing a New Song

2025 March – Searching for ways to make your writing more visible online

2025 April – Writer seeks attention (or What matters to your reader?)

2025 May – How do you deal with unwanted gifts?

2025 June – Is living with an identity crisis a writer’s natural state?

2025 July – How to avoid feeling second best by encouraging others in their journey

2025 August - Watch your words – What does your writing reveal about you?