Today is the first day of another year. If you are like me, you have probably spent some time pondering what 2023 will look like and jotted down a few goals you plan to work toward in the next twelve months. Maybe you want this year to look like a bigger, better version of last year. Perhaps you want this year to look nothing like what you’ve just closed out and intend it to take a very different direction. No matter your intentions, you’re probably joining millions of other improvement-minded individuals who are charting new workout routines, drawing up new budgets, or just promising yourself you’ll finally “get organized,” whatever that means.
I would very much like to leave 2022 in the rearview, but one positive outcome of an otherwise seismic shift of a year was that I found room to reengage with my hobbies after a long time away from them. Therefore, one of my resolutions this year is to read and write more. I set myself with a 30-day challenge to read a chapter a day. The impetus for this was inspired by the Slow Growth newsletter’s first entry in their Slow Growth Challenge. Seeing as I have a to-read pile that fills multiple bookshelves, this seemed like a perfect way to get into gear in the new year. I was sure I’d figure out the writing part later!
With every intention of tucking into a technical book on creative writing, I found myself putting the reading off on day one. Not a promising start to things… Figuring that I was avoiding it because the book I chose was one related to something I have anxiety over (writing), I instead opted to read Marie Kondo’s newest book Kurashi at Home. I am a devoted follower of the Spark Joy philosophy and this seemed like a light and easy read to get me into the groove of my new challenge.
Chapter one of Kurashi at Home is called A Dialogue with Yourself. In this introductory chapter, Kondo guides the reader through many of the questions she asks her clients as they start their tidying journey. (For those considering picking this book up, it seems to assume at least some familiarity with Kondo and her KonMari method.) I am a few years into my Spark Joy journey, so I settled into the comfort of familiar territory. It was with a certain level of astonishment, then, that I found myself resonating with the contents on a different level.
Please forgive me for bending the metaphor to my purpose, but you see, this year I have set out to tidy my life.
2022 was possibly one of the hardest years of my life. A family health crisis early in the year devoured my time and attention in ways that we are still trying to understand ten months later. I exited a bad job that I was long overdue to leave and I’m still processing all the ways it took a toll on me. And to have this all chase the pandemic that crippled the globe for nearly two years and still presents a looming threat in the background? I take pride in the fact that I crawled my way through.
That is where I found myself at the beginning of a new year, desperate to cleave back some sense of self and stake out a small territory to exert my influence over. It is from this position that I zeroed in on the idea of Inward, which acts as my guiding star. And this is where I was confronted by a book about tidying up my home.
“When are you going to start?” Kondo asks this question of her clients, pressing them to declare a date and time where they will take charge of their homes, the things they contain, and the journey they are about to embark on. To me, those words felt like an indictment of my own dedication to my new habits. I had already chosen a more comfortable book over the “more important” reading I had previously selected. And I had conveniently avoided another resolution that was far more important to me.
In order to write more, I had resolved in the winter that I would write 50,000 words by the end of the season. Like many of Kondo’s clients who are asked to imagine their ideal future home full of things that only spark joy, I was beaming at the idea of what that accomplishment might look like. And also like so many would-be aspirants who become intimidated at the sight of a mountain of clothing (stage one on the KonMari method), the idea of setting pen to paper filled me with a small kind of dread.
I had chosen fifty thousand words for a few reasons. First among them is the fact that I have easily written that much and more in less time. As a longtime participant of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), I have crossed the finish line a few times in my quest to string together that many words in just a single month. Giving myself THREE month?! I was practically setting myself up for success!
Secondly, I deliberately chose to define a quantity of output rather than a certain kind of outcome. It is far easier to write fifty thousand words across many different projects (blog posts, poems, games, short stories) than it is to write them all for one novel or project. If some of the words aren’t good, who cares? There’s always the next thing. I have been stymied many times over setting myself unachievable goals. This one felt different. It felt possible.
And yet, I had no clear plan to follow through. In order to read more, I simply read a chapter a day for 30 days. Half of my fitness habit is just driving myself to the gym. But writing… I have yet to define what that habit looks like. I have yet to understand where it fits in and how I will make it a part of my routine. I have not answered Marie’s question: “when will you start?”
Do not let this post fool you, I am no closer to having established my path forward for writing this entry. I make no promises that I will follow this post up with another anytime soon (the long stretches of silence in my archive should attest to that much). But maybe this can be my opening volley, my first thousand words to fill up that progress bar. The best way to become a better writer is to write. When I envision my ideal future, being someone who writes is a part of that vision. That sparks joy.