I started this post on Sunday, 12.30.23, listening, as I have most Sunday mornings, to the wshu radio musical program: Sunday Baroque. I know, feel it in my bones, that I’ve been listening to this radio musical treat for at least 24 years of Sundays… Sometime, earlier in 2023, the program’s start time shifted. It appears to me that streaming took over. I know I can/could figure it out or at least contact the station or consult the website but I haven’t…”Next week,” I tell myself… the good news is this Sunday I get to tell myself “next year”! Solving this puzzle goes on – to the top ?- of my 2024 list…

What happened to Monday?

Today, Tuesday, 2 January 2024, I am writing this post during my daily 8 Am Writers’ Hour zoom session. I started this gig in 2022 ? (date escapes me ) and have been “faithful” to starting each day, M- F and within the 55 minutes circle of time, to writing. Some people do a word count; I haven’t —-yet!

This is the time of the beginning of the New Year when many resolve to make this the “best year ever.” I do not exclude myself. My plan is to “get my life in order” which is no small feat – I’ve been focusing on just that task for decades – and I do mean decades! Some days I win. Some days, I manage to take those three steps forward, backwards…

Many also choose a word of focus – a one word to guide one’s actions throughout the year. In my writer’s room, I am surrounded by my words, gathered since 2009, when I first started this practice of focusing on a single word for 365 days to help guide my thinking and actions. My first word : JOY.

This year, rather than choose a single word, I’ve decided to revisit all my words chosen and incorporated in my daily life these past 14 years. I have almost all those words in wooden form, each made for me by a dear friend’s husband.

I’ve shared the fact that I am also a big fan of Gretchen Rubin, as she often describes herself: “the Happiness Bully.” I first “met” Gretchen via her book, The Happiness Project, a 2009 publication. I have purchased and read all her Happiness -themed books; I listen to her weekly Happier podcasts with her sister, Liz Craft, also a writer, and prior to Covid’19 pandemic, attended her writer’s book tours (also with her sister). This year, 2024, I am participating in the year-long Happiness Project Revisited .

And, for me, a major component of Happiness is staying true to my daily intentions to bring peace, calm, order, via implementing beneficial habits to my daily life. One of those habits, dare I say life long, is writing. Write2024 also happens to be this year’s focus to listeners of Gretchen’s and Liz’s annual challenge. Again, dare I say “ A match made in heaven” ?! (Currently I’m typing this on my iPad and it is being uncooperative with making an Interabang: a combination question and exclamation mark. Grr!)

It is 10 AM. Writers’ Hour has been over an hour and I, distracted trying to make the Interrobang on the iPad, lost track of time as well as my train of thought. I see I shall have to take a photo of my words, A – Z…

To be continued…Do you have a word for 2024? Please share in the comments and a link to a blog post if you wrote/published.

Write On!

Cheers~