Happy New Year!

I started thinking about what I want to do differently in the new year a couple of weeks ago. I’m not calling them resolutions because they’re not just for 2023. They’re from this day forward. At the top of my list is swimming, skating, and hula hooping. When I was on my sorority anniversary trip in Cabo, I envied the ease with which one of my line sisters woke up every morning that we were there and went to swim laps in the infinity pool before breakfast. I learned how to swim for the second time about 15 years ago but I didn’t keep it up. I learned because I wanted to stay fit with fun activities that wouldn’t make me feel like I was exercising. Hence why skating and hula hooping are on the agenda.

Next up is traveling. I took two trips in 2022, six months apart. The first one was my friends 40th birthday in New York in July. The second was the Cabo trip in December. I like the idea of spacing out the trips. It allowed for financial recovery from the trip before the next one. So now I’m thinking of a small weekend trip in the first quarter of the year, followed by a bigger one the second half. Likely destinations are Washington, DC and Jamaica.

Next up–writing. I can’t say it enough but National Novel Writing Month really did change my perspective on writing. It’s not enough for me to resolve to write more this year. It’s easy to write more. But it’s another whole thing to produce more writing projects. Finish the writing projects that I’ve started. I have approximately four projects I’ve been working on concurrently. None of which, except one, that had a projected date of completion and that didn’t even happen. At the close of the year, two are near complete and the other two are in the beginning stages. So, I devised a plan to complete all five by the first quarter on 2023.

One will be completed before this week is out. A week ago, I learned about writing in blocks of time. What I used to do was look a day off work and say, “I’m going to write today.” No specific start or cut-off time. That method hasn’t gotten my where I really desire to be. Last week I reached out a fellow writer who joined one of my NaNoWriMo sessions and I remembered her talking about a group she was in that helped be a more focused, productive writer. Heart Breathings Writing Community. I joined the Facebook group and subscribed to the group owners YouTube channel. I watched a video where she described the writing block system. I implemented it that same day. And that’s why I’m almost finished with one of my projects!

Now granted, I still mess up, even with this new method of writing in place. Like watching T.V. or answering calls when I’m writing. But there have been some wins, too, along the way. Like NOT answering a call when I was writing and pushing the guilt away when it came for me. The caller survived over remaining 30 minutes of my scheduled writing time.

I am still a work in progress, in ever area of my life. But I’ll never stop seeking to be better.

May you have a prosperous and blessed 2023!