Intentions Not Resolutions this NY
A fail safe way to dream up your new creative year!
Dear Friends and Subscribers.
It’s the morning of New Years Eve and I don’t usually post on a Sunday but I wanted to get this to you before the clock ticks over into 2024. Here in Sydney people are already heading out to stake a harbourside view of our annual NYE fireworks. If you’ve never been you have to brave the crowds at least once in a lifetime. I’ve been at least three or four times but these days I prefer to wander down to our local park and join the hillside rabble — picnicking families, groups of friends, romantic couples — kids and dogs running around in wonderful glow-in-the-dark outfits as the distant view of the smoky spectacle unfolds.
Or I might just stay home and write in a new journal gifted to me by fellow writer Kerry Dwyer. Mostly when people give me plain page journals they sit on my shelf for years, but this one is too magnificent not to be immediately put into use.
With New Years in mind I started journalling a couple of days ago, not trying to come up with resolutions but intentions. It’s a stress free way to dream up a new creative year that I wrote about a couple of years back. Here’s what I said…
New Years’s resolutions, I fall for them every time!
Hoping to become a completely new person with all my bad habits banished for ever, by February, not only is my bad old self back, but I feel like a total failure.
This year I’m setting intentions instead.
An intention is way more fluid, it’s an aim or a plan, it has more flexibility, more room for give, and is thus more acheivable.
It doesn’t have judgement and failure attached. It’s more of an aspiration, a wish, a desire for betterment rather than a command.
Whenever I begin a workshop or writer’s retreat I ask participants to set an intention. It’s something they write down and keep to themselves, a private wish or desire that they can revisit at the end.
We can do the same for the year to come. If a year feels too big we can set intentions by increment — for a season or a month at a time.
You can set one intention or many. Once you get started you’ll usually have a few more wanting to tumble out.
I suggest writing them down in a visual diary or plain paged scrap book, A4 size at least. Use coloured pens and write big. Illustrate with line drawings and diagrams if you are that way inclined.
The more I do this the more do-able it all feels. I can review them at anytime, remind myself when I forget, add some new ones, tick off things I’ve achieved, add comments, start a new page and a whole new set!
I can take pleasure in sending my intentions out to the universe knowing they have a chance of becoming real.
There’s no beating yourself up when you forget, no self flagellation when you slip up. Slip up is not a concept in the world of intention.
It’s all about being kind to yourself and others. Taking the pressure off. Giving yourself a chance to bring a creative approach to everything you do.
After all isn’t that all we ever want to achieve?
Take some time today to set your intentions for the new year. Write it down on a piece of paper, pin it on your notice board, blue-tac it to your computer or burn it in a bowl of incense at midnight.
Wishing you all the best for a creative, productive, peace filled, 2024!
If you need some assistance I am here to help. See below for workshops, journeys and mentoring services I am offering in 2024.
ONE-ON-ONE
Manuscript Feedback. If you have a draft or even partial draft you want feedback on I can offer a thorough feedback session in person or by zoom where together we brainstorm and trouble shoot what’s needed to bring your MS to completion.
Mentoring Package. Three sessions (or tailor to your needs) over three months. Deadlines, feedback on submitted work, advice on publishing.
Procrastination Coaching. After an initial goal setting session, I meet you at your virtual desk at an appointed time to activate your daily goal. Then we check in at the end of the day. We continue like this until the new habit is established and the desired goal is reached.
ONLINE WORKSHOPS
Draft Busters Online starts again on Monday Jan 15.
Draft Busters is for published or unpublished memoir writers, novelists, script writers, non fiction writers, scribblers and doodlers in all genres, who want to seriously progress their long term writing project. Two sessions per week on Zoom. Sign up for a monthly module (4 weeks). Contact Jan if you would like to join.
Motivation Mondays 10 - 11.30 am AEST.
Feedback Fridays 3.30 - 5.30pm AEST.
Free Online Workshop, conducted on Zoom, third Sunday of the month at 4-5pm AEST.
Contact Jan for details.
WRITERS JOURNEYS
Haiku Walking in Japan, Mar 27 – April 1, 2024, One spot left!
Sensing Italy, June 4 – 15, 2024. Still room!
Gascony Residency, June 19 – 30, 2024. Limited places, book now!
Moroccan Caravan, Feb 10 - 24, 2025. Will book out, so get in early!
ON SUBSTACK
In April 2023 I began this Substack to present weekly episodes my travel memoir, Looking for Duras, a Mekong Journey. It has been a great experience and I recommend it to all writers who want to re-energise their writing process. If you missed some or all of the chapters you can find them here. (Scroll to the bottom to read in order).
In 2024 I hope to be bringing some new writing/creativity activities and other treats for paid members. If you would like to become a paid member today you can take advantage of 2023 prices which will rise in Feb 2024.
Thanks to all those who have so generously supported this enterprise so far! I look forward to engaging with you in the year to come. I always love to hear what you are up to in your creative pursuits. Please feel free to let us know in the comments here or by email. If you have been on a Writer’s Journey with us and have some writing you would like to submit to our Medium blog, please let me know. Here are some of the latest offerings from our Story Hunters in India.
See you in the New Year!!
Jan
Ah .. was going to post my resolutions/intentions photo but can’t add here -- will pop in comments on your FB post. Best wishes for some intentions actualising, and some positive unexpected changes and occurrences.