JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Happy New Year, everyone! As I mentioned last year (sorry, I had to get that old chestnut out of the way) it’s a Reds tradition to share our resolutions on or about January first. We’ve talked about goal setting and intentions. Rhys has shared her habit of making a beginning-of-the-year list, and Jenn got us started on our current practice, which is to think about a word that will shape the coming year.
Our words for January 2020 were things like Abundance, Energy and Joy. Needless to say, our words on January 2021 were a little less enthusiastic. Survive, Persevere and Self Care were popular. So how to go forward into the third year of a world-wide pandemic? We all want to greet the new year with bravery and optimism, but the latter, at least, is getting hard to find.
I feel like I’ve been living inward for the past two years, staying at home, traveling in books and escaping in TV shows and movies. So, looking inward, my word for 2022 is going to be DEEP WORK. It’s a phrase, I know. This past year, I realized one of my problems with writing is that I’ve trained my brain with an endless diet of quick hits - skimming the paper, picking up books and putting them down, scrolling Twitter or FB for hours in my down time. I need to retrain my mind, to improve my focus for non-writing jobs and my endurance for writing. If I shorten the word to DEEP, it works as well. If we can’t go wide in a Covid-19 world, we can still go deep.
What are your words for 2022, Reds?
RHYS BOWEN: Oh Julia— I’m finding it hard to be positive right now. We’ve all been so careful for so long and it’s been one step forward and two steps back for two years. I was looking forward to a cruise and now not sure it will happen. So a word or resolution? I think it would have to be gratitude for what a have: my family safe, my surroundings beautiful, my writing flourishing. So I resolve to see the goodness amid the gloom, the glimmer of hope. So my word is CHERISH.
HALLIE EPHRON: I second Rhys: I am SO grateful for what I have, right now a houseful of raucous grandchildren and their lovely parents and auntie and cat, all in good health. This year my resolution is easy: get back on the horse and write. My word: STICKY. Something I’ll write about more in the new year.
HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: My word is “WHATEVER.” Okay, that’s probably not a great word, but for someone who is used to taking control of things (as much as I can or should) and not being a very go-with-the-flow person, the flow has gotten to me, and fine. I am in the “do the best I can and be grateful” mode. I am lucky, we are lucky, in so many ways, and I just want to write my books and keep people safe and take one step at a time. As we’ve discussed, I have no idea what day it is, but as long as there’s a day, all good.
LUCY BURDETTE: Like Rhys, I’m finding it hard to be positive. Right now at this very moment, I’m discouraged. Another year of this nonsense, really? I know I’ll come out of that, and I will write the next food critic mystery–I’m pleased with what I have so far. But what will come after that? It will be something but I’m not sure what! I don’t want my word for the year to be “discouraged,” so maybe I’ll borrow Rhys’s “GLIMMER.”
JENN MCKINLAY: My word for the year is “PERSIST” because, frankly, there’s no alternative other than to keep on keeping on. Next year will be what it will be no matter how much we kick our feet and pull our hair out. That being said, I’d like to see some terms and conditions before I agree to 2022 but I don’t expect that will happen either.
DEBORAH CROMBIE: I think I will go with “SMALL.” Since I, like most of us, am struggling to come up with big broad terms like “hopeful.” So I will just try to focus on the small everyday things that can be tackled (as in pages written) or appreciated ( a few minutes sitting in the sun.) There is a dash of “cherish” and a dash of “determination” in there, too.
JULIA: How about you, dear readers? What would you choose for your word? And how are you this fine New Year’s Day?
