Well, my plan to post once a week was going well until (like so many other things) it was derailed once the results of the election became clear. That so many people would’ve seen what happened the first time, and decided for some reason they want more of that chaos, was so jarring that I’ve felt the need to recalibrate my entire life – not in such overly dramatic terms, but I realize now that that’s what I’ve been doing ever since the morning after.

Now, as we wind our way towards the time of the year when everyone begins to declare resolutions, I declare that resolutions are silly and set us up for nothing more than failure. However, what we could all do with a little more of is quiet reflection. We put so many eggs in baskets well beyond our control such as who the president is, while ignoring the fact that we have enormous control over our thoughts, words, and actions every single day of the year, all of which create the life that we are living. If you are not content with your life, look at those three things. Put down all the blame fostered upon others (no matter how justified it may seem), and take responsibility for where you are in your life. There is always something you can change for the better, if you so choose to.

(Perhaps resolutions are helpful after all – if we reflect on why we’ve chosen the resolutions we have. They can tell us so much about ourselves – if, for example, our resolution is to lose weight, is the motivation to do so purely cosmetic, to look better, or is it to be healthier, in order that you can have more energy to do the positive things that you wish to do in life? But I digress…)

As ever, my reflections/resolutions/whatever you want to call it, have a great deal to do with my desire to write, and all the forces, both internal and external, that impede that progress. It’s been a lopsided writing year for me, starting with a story accepted early on in the year, then months of rejection after rejection, followed by two acceptances in recent weeks. Publication, however, is certainly not the most helpful metric to use when evaluating one’s creative output. For several years I’ve struggled to write anything new, instead rewriting older pieces to try to sell them, but this year I wrote several shorter new pieces, and I’m almost finished with a longer story that was born out of a completely new idea. The act of physically putting pen to paper – that is where true progress can be measured, for that is where true satisfaction lies.

And so I go into the new year with the modest writing goals of finishing that story, along with a second story I began a while back but see great promise in. I also seek to continually keep up on my submissions to literary journals throughout the entire year. My main 2025 goal, however, is to reprioritize the search for a literary agent. I have two completed novels, both of which I still have faith in, and believe that somewhere out there is an agent who will see value in them as well. Of course I can’t control that, but I can control the effort I put into it, and that concentrated effort is what I seek for the coming year.

One last note on the writing front is that I’m happy to say I have joined the millions who have jumped from the drowning Twitter ship and taken to Bluesky instead. Even before the election I felt extremely uncomfortable using the site once Elon Musk took it over, but it is used widely in literary circles and seems almost a necessity for an unknown writer in the modern age attempting to get any sort of attention for their work. If nothing else, I feel better disassociating myself from that cesspool, and that sadly misguided manchild, and I urge you all to do the same.

December tends to be the busiest month of the year, with holidays and family and all of that, but let’s finish the year strong, allowing us to transition into the new year with grounded wisdom and wise desires that will lead us to a happier, more content, more satisfying life. I’ll see you there.