4 Reflections to Close the Year
How did your creative process unfold in 2022? What's calling you now?
It’s late Friday afternoon. I’ve stalled out on several posts for this newsletter, tried jumpstarting my focus with espresso and snacks with no effect other than to make me want more espresso and snacks.
Maybe because I’ve brought so much work to fruition this year (a full manuscript, this weekly newsletter, many classes, a community!) hibernation is calling to me—hard.
To prepare for the speed-up/slow-down of late December, I’ve been listening to Ross Gay’s Inciting Joy (I highly recommend) on audio while clearing. Clearing out files, loose drafts, poems scribbled with notes. Clearing away dead project starts. Giving away books. Today I even deleted an entire website (see “dead projects”).
I’ve also been reading like a rogue, scanning shelves in used book stores and the library just to see what sparks. As a result of my wildly unfocused reading habits, I’ve been thinking about what the works of Marie Curie, Shams of Tabriz, Mark Rothko, and Taylor Swift have in common, and what they might, taken together, say about the essential ingredients of poetry. (More on that in a future post, if I can get my focus back.)
Back to the point, here …
Four Reflections to Close the Year
I think it’s more joyful and effective, in any creative work, to lean into the process rather than focus too much on the end product, so my end-of-year reflections are less about goals achieved/goals projected, and more about the internal and external and external factors that generate momentum in the work I have done and want to do next. Here they are, roughly.
Process: What do you know now about your creative process that you didn’t know at the beginning of 2022? At its best, what did your process look like this year? Which motivations, habits, and routines moved your work forward? Which could be dropped in 2023?
Supports: Outside of your own efforts, what helped move your work forward most? If you attended any classes, workshops, or conferences this year, which supported your work best? Why? Among peers, mentors, friends, whose support meant the most to you? What would you return to in 2023? Let go of? Evolve?
Focus: Which topics, themes, or curiosities fed your writing this year? Of those, which are complete or no longer interesting? Which do you want to explore further in 2023? What’s calling you in 2023?
Fruitions: What are you celebrating about your writing this year? Which accomplishments, large or small, were most satisfying to you? (Accomplishment can be as simple as I kept writing!)
It can be eye opening to look back at the year with curiosity and discernment. What manifested in your work? Through the work? In the process? In your relationship to the work? And how did that work begin live the world—in the communities where you share your voice?
What’s your most surprising insight about 2022? Share it in the comments.
Thank you so much for this excellent list Radha. This is the time of the year I use for complete slow down, cleaning the 'house' and for reflection--this list will be great for the last. 2022 has been a very important year for my writing since this is the first time I have shared my work with the world (primarily on Medium). I met with positive feedback and that created a positive reinforcement loop of sorts. It gave me the confidence that I have something worthwhile to share. It was also a year when I started developing my voice. The more I write, the more well-defined, stronger and confident it becomes...and then I break it all up to try something different :) It has been an iterative process and is still work in progress...to be continued in 2023.
2023, I also hope to get more formal about my writing (start submitting my work to publications etc.) and see how that goes. I also intend to get more structured about filing, so my words don't fly away on old scraps :)
Your manuscript workshop was definitely a great support--thank you for that :)
Wishing you and yours a very happy, peaceful and calming holiday season!
I promise me that I will reflect on successes, no matter how small-- I need the reinforcement, which leads to encouragement. That much acknowledged, I wrote more poetry in the past year than in the previous 3 (and more) combined. I'm embracing more experiments in writing , less focused on outcome/finished poem. Thanks to my small community of dedicated poets, my process has expanded to include many new (and wonderfully productive) approaches. What's calling me is the urge to write more within themes/motifs that speak to me. And get my collection closer to manuscript-ready!