While it seems patently absurd, especially in light of recent events, to think that the total hash that 2020 turned out to be will suddenly resolve with the cycling of a digit, the New Year still holds some significance. It’s still a time of renewal, hope, and refreshment, rationally or not. There’s a special energy about the time that I love tapping into.
I have a handful of little rituals surrounding the New Year that help me refresh and renew in several areas of my life. Things like fresh spreadsheets for my personal accounting, rotating my Freedom File system. It’s a little early for real Spring Cleaning, but I like to at least try to find the tops of my flat surfaces again after all of the lovely decorative excess of the holidays. A fresh non-holiday playlist and updating the wallpaper on my laptop and phone make for a nice change of scenery as we settle in for the long, gray slog to spring. And, of course, there are a few things that I do specifically as a writer at the beginning of the new year.
- Break-In a fresh planner
- Seek out potential publications for submission openings
- Review the last year, what worked, what didn’t
- Review the year ahead and brainstorm
- Organize and Prepare
- Bonus Prep… Required Reading
Break-In a Fresh Planner
I have kept a Bullet Journal, in some form or another, since I discovered the concept late in my college career. Nine years. Oof. I didn’t realize it had been that long. They’re lining up rather nicely on my shelf, now, an archive of my life. Early on, the daily entries are essentially to-do lists, maybe an extra line of a note if something nutty happened that day. In 2016, I upgraded from a simple grid-paper hardback to a Hobonichi Techo, then in 2018 to the Hobonichi Cousin, and I’ve never looked back.
My planner very much straddles the personal and the professional; everything lands in it, from my day job schedule to vehicle maintenance and personal appointments to writing blocks and deadlines. It’s my second brain that I would be lost without.
Review Publications for Submission Openings and Deadlines
For me, 2020 was a year of getting my toes wet. A year of getting comfortable with sending my work out into the world, and with rejection letters and the feeling of being very small and very new. 2021 is going to be a year of doubling down on those lessons.
While I am working on a second-draft/rewrite of a much longer project, the bulk of my submissions and queries continue to be in the short story market.
I kept a spreadsheet of detailed notes from publications and contests that I entered in 2020, which formed the basis of my 2021 research and planning. I’ve expanded that sheet to include future submission openings and deadlines to the same publications, as well as to other publications that may be interested in my work. Those dates migrate right into my planner.
Review Last Year: What Worked and What Didn’t
This is actually a step that I do more or less quarterly, and so coincides nicely with the New Year. It involves re-centering on my goals, and looking back over what parts of my process have moved me closer to those goals, and what parts have not. I try to feed and cull accordingly.
As an example, here are my goals from Q4 2020
Looking back, my October and November went like clockwork according to plan. But, I’m looking over December. I got the post done, but, full disclosure, truly failed on drafting ANY short stories last month. Instead, holiday prep and rewrites on a longer project took center stage.
The important thing about this review process is to be gently critical with yourself and learn from what happened. I learned that December is a bad month for me to push my writing ambitions hard. After the concentrated focus of NaNoWriMo and with the fuss of the holidays, this is a better time for me personally to do “softer” writing; conceptualizing, worldbuilding, and note-taking, which I did in volume last month.
Review the Year Ahead and Brainstorm
This process basically combines the previous two items. I take what I learned about the processes that help me succeed and the goals that I have, and brainstorm ways to bring those together. I build my gameplan, a quarter at a time, and put what I need to do into my planner. In this future brainstorming and planning, I include things like:
- Lead time to have a short story ready to submit
- Incorporating publication issue themes, etc.
- Topics to blog about and include in my newsletter, and lead times to prepare the content
- Community connection goals
- Content ideas for Twitter and Instagram
- Progress goals for novel WIP
- NaNoWriMo
- “Bad Writing Days” to plan around, or to focus on softer writing tasks.
Organize and Prepare
In this task, I look at my physical space. I take time to organize my desk and my writing space, to get clutter and physical distractions under control.
Most of my work is digital, so tidying and organizing my electronic files, and ensuring that those are properly backed up, is a key part of this. After that, I focus on my physical desk. I keep a stock of printer paper, journaling and stationery supplies, and other office supplies at hand that are always more fun to have accessible when I need them. This is also a great time to purge things that need to go, like dried up pens and markers. What I have left at the end of this are materials that I use, and things that bring me joy and inspiration.
Bonus Prep Step: Required Reading
Alongside all of the practical preparation that I do around this time of year, I also do a lot of adding to my to-read list. I don’t have a great deal of art to this process; I just add physical copies to the stack and lines to the list of copies I want to acquire. The additions are all based on where my interests are going.
This year, at least so far, I’m drifting into a lot of business and management books, as well as books on writing and storycraft. There is also a healthy dose of philosophy and personal growth content in my “to-read” list to round out the nonfiction side. Of course, I’m still devouring fiction, both as a researcher of the craft and as a consumer of stories that capture my imagination. And I’m always up for a good recommendation!
Goodreads is one of my favorite ways to keep track of what I want to read and share what I’ve read. Check out my profile there for some of my reviews and recommendations, and drop me a link here in the comments, on Goodreads, or over on Twitter with your recommendations!! One of my New Year’s resolutions is to read more and to get even more out of my reading.
Conclusion
Writers out there… what are some of the things that you do around the New Year, or any time, to refresh and reset your process? Do you have any tips, tricks, or hacks to share? Share your thoughts and ideas in the comments, or on social media!
Until next time, Reader… write on!
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