Footnotes :: December

Writerly rituals for a peaceful new year

New Year’s Eve is a mixed bag in Berlin.

I adore the fresh page feeling of January 1, but the night before is an enormous challenge to my nervous system. Germany allows the legal sale and use of fireworks for a limited window right around the 31st and as soon as it’s dark on the last night of the year, they let loose.

As the sort of person who screams whenever our doorbell rings¹, hours of constant explosions run me — and our cats — ragged. This has prompted a carefully crafted series of rituals for the evening that provide some semblance of calm.

Picture me and three cats with this face until Jan 2.

Even if you don’t live in a place where fireworks go off for 6 hours straight, there can be a lot of soothing needed before heading back into the fray, post festivities. Those who spend time with family often end up with bruised feelings, and those unable to spend time with loved ones because of distance or any other reason often feel sad as well.

Here are the treats I save for New Year’s Eve each year:

• Half Spent Was the Night, Ami McKay. I recommend reading The Witches of New York² first, to get to know the characters and the world. It’s also a delightful read, and a soothing one. I reread Half Spent… during New Year, as it’s short and sweet and gives me a sugar-spun taste of midwinter and magic. It’s technically a Yuletide story, so sticklers will want to read it on the winter solstice instead, but I like it for New Year.

• Notebook set-up. I keep a planner — the Mark + Fold one — for weekly scheduling, along with a bullet journal with some added features based on Rachael Stephen’s Constellation system, which she’s currently teaching on her Patreon. I start a new notebook each January, whether I am completely finished with my previous one or not, and it always feels good to prep the pages on the 31st

• Choose a word for the upcoming year. In fairness, I usually have a word selected by the time we’re in countdown to New Year’s Day, but I finalize it in the days leading up to the first. If you need some guidance selecting your own, I’ve used

  Susannah Conway
  ’s Find Your Word workbook for years. This year, it helped me clarify the word that summed up the quality I wanted and it felt just right.

• Do something creative with my hands. I’ve spent the last couple of weeks working on the Sophie Shawl by Petite Knit and would have finished it tonight, if I hadn’t foolishly tried to stretch the yarn a bit too far. Now I have just a few rows left and have to wait for a new ball of yarn to arrive later this week or early next. Still, anything that is a tangible creative project feels nourishing in the dim days just beginning to lengthen. I’ve got fabric and thread ready to sew tomorrow and will likely sew up a dress based on this idea from Sarah Moran, in addition to a new twist on a blouse pattern I’ve made before.

• Review the year that’s ending and dream up new intentions for the year to come. I’ve laid out the process I use in Your Writing Year, the planner now available for Book Alchemy subscribers. If you haven’t yet subscribed you can get your copy here:

Finally, read something inspiring

I am so grateful to the writers who put so much love and care into the articles and books that made my year more meaningful in 2024.

Here are a few 2024 favorites to light the way into 2025:

• Holly Ringland
  on a long-held dream coming true.

• Maggie Smith
  shares poetry prompts and reading recommendations with an excellent Lloyd Dobbler reference (paid).

• TJ Klune’s sequel to The House in the Cerulean Sea came out recently. It’s called Somewhere Beyond the Sea, and reading these two back-to-back is a joysplosion of love.

• Oliver Burkeman’s Meditation for Mortals took the pressure off trying to do everything. If the start of a year makes you panic, this will help.

• Dorothy Whipple’s High Wages, put out by Persephone Books, is the most soothing reading of all: a woman who realizes she has a talent for something, and goes on to kick ass at it, despite society and the era’s values being stacked against her.

• My most personal post of 2024 was this one, and it’s also the one I’m most proud of. Go figure.

  When it's time to rewrite the story

  Thank you for making 2024 so special.

I’m grateful to each one of you reading this message, for everyone who left a comment, shared a book they were enjoying in our discussion threads, and most of all to those who took a chance on supporting this project with a paid subscription.

The love and support from you had meant the world, and has inspired me to create even more for you in 2025.

Let’s have an even better year to come, shall we?

hugs from here,
Caroline

1. I wish this was an exaggeration, but it’s not. Ask

Barry McWilliams

.

2. If you liked Alix Harrow’s The Once and Future Witches, you will be all about this world. Get in there.