Thoughts about writing, and the universe.
Hello 2024! Time goes so quickly--it feels like less than a year has gone by since I posted a reflection about my 2022 writing goals. Looking back now, it appears I never actually made a post about my 2023 writing goals, but they were essentially a repeat of those from 2022. It feels like a... Continue Reading →
I post these updates on Words like Trees on Sundays, but I write them on Saturdays. I'm not a procrastinator. It makes me anxious to have things hanging over me. But today, it's Sunday. My post won't have been written yet by the time I normally would have liked it scheduled to appear. The reason... Continue Reading →
Routines get upended during the holidays. My eight-month-old nephew, who is so sweet, has had his routines disrupted this last week by the Christmas festivities, as well as by his visiting and overly-excited uncles. He gets cranky. He refuses to go down for a nap. I've been privately saying to him, "I'm with you, mister!"... Continue Reading →
For the last two years, I have been setting strategic writing goals for myself to help me keep moving in the direction I want to go. My writing goals in 2021 helped me increase productivity and direct my energies towards the parts of my writing work that felt most important. In 2022, I updated my... Continue Reading →
I could not believe how hard it was to wake up early again after the summer! My alarm whined like a hungry dog. I stumbled up, tightened the muscles in my legs to stop the lightheadedness, managed to gather phone and sweater and water cup. I set the water boiling for tea. I made it... Continue Reading →
As the end of May approaches, I have been springing ahead to try to meet my monthly writing goals. I set these goals at the beginning of the year in order to keep myself making progress on my writing journey. I posted an update in January, but the months have been racing by and it... Continue Reading →
Just shy of a month ago, I sat down and set myself a few writing goals. I set a goal for word count and a goal for submissions. A perhaps foolhardy goal for publications too I set. During January, I chipped away at these. Let's make an update of where things stand. I'll share some... Continue Reading →
We arrived back in Norway to an incredible winter pageant. A couple inches of snow was encrusted everywhere by the most overwhelming display of ice crystals I have ever seen. Half and inch to an inch long, flat and shiny, sparkling, brilliant blue, the whole world was growing these crystal shards somehow like metallic mushrooms,... Continue Reading →
Across a week of brilliant family time, of busy holiday baking, of the furious knitting of a gift before the deadline hits, of episodes of The Crown and sorting pictures out for Christmas-gift calendars, I have been appreciating family traditions, the things that come again and again with the years in their lightly varied but... Continue Reading →
In late October, I set myself a writing goal of 12,000 words, which is certainly more than I had written in quite some time before that. As November has marched on, I have chipped away dependably. Setting this goal really had an impact on my volume. We're entering the final week of term, and the... Continue Reading →
Words like trees 