New Year Creative Overload
Ramblings on my scattergun approach to January this year
I have begun January filled with energy and intention. My head is constantly filled with ideas about all the creative things I want to do this month and this year: Substack posts, books and stories I want to write; things I want to make and create; books I want to read, book lists I want to compile; projects around my home, decorating, tidying, generally rejigging; trips I want to take, places I want to visit, exhibitions, films and plays and people I want to see. It’s a lot.
There is so much, and I want to do it all.
I’ll see a post on social media suggesting a daily art challenge, I’m in. Someone else suggests reading through a series of novels. I’ll do it. Cooking from a different cookery book each day. Why not. A daily cupboard sort out. Yes please. Count me in. I’m there for it all.
Ideas pop in and out of my head when I’m walking or running or on the tube or doing my day job. Often, fleeting, they buzz in and buzz out again before I can even capture them or commit them to the page. And yet despite all this fizzing energy, I have felt slightly paralysed. Not quite able to commit to anything properly and consistently. Besides exercise, reading and journaling, these are my daily constants.
I sit at my desk today with a list beside me of things I want to achieve, some of them already have big green ticks, others have been carried over from yesterday and the day before and last week.
Where is the completion? Why is it I find myself flitting from task to task? I can be writing one thing and then, in the middle of it, making notes about something else I’m excited about? My scattergun approach means I have lots of things on the go, albeit many of them barely begun. It’s not even that I don’t have the time. I really do, well, mostly anyway. I work, and my job can be emotionally and mentally challenging, but it’s not full-time, and I don’t have children or lots of demanding family or caring commitments.
Chatting with a couple of friends recently, it seems I’m not alone in this struggle with finding some creative stability this year. Maybe it’s a January thing, maybe it’s a new year thing. Maybe it’s just the pressure we put ourselves under as women to do all the things. Or maybe it’s the craziness of the world we are living in that also feels a little out of control and scary right now.
I know many people decide to take January slowly and hunker down, and I am all for that. Books, a fire, mugs of tea, thoughtful planning, nights in, hygge. Yes to all of it, but I also want to harness the creative energy and direct it so that I can get stuff done. I want to reach the end of January with less cloud and more clarity.
All ideas and suggestions on a postcard please!
Thank you as always, for reading
Until next time
I’m deleting myself from email lists and Substacks with ruthless determination and have resurrected an old IG account with a select few on it. You’ll be glad to know you made the cut on both lists 😉
I think it's everything combined! Trying to see the creative sparks as abundance, but sometimes those sparks fizzle, and also trying to be okay with that, too ;)