A Polar-Bear Plunge for Your Writing (A Love Letter)
Wrapping your head around the new year
It helps me enormously if you drop a heart on this newsletter, forward it to a friend, or share it on social media. Or subscribe to get me in your inbox! And I adore comments! I love hearing from you, so you can hit reply and email me any time. Writing these newsletters is part of how I make a living as a writer, so I welcome paid subscriptions, too. And also read on for info on the Artist’s Way class for paid subscribers starting in January.
(With apologies thanks to the New Yorker and Roy Burkhead for the title inspiration1.)
Hi lovies,
Here we are in 2025, five days into it as a matter of fact. As far as I’m concerned, tomorrow, Monday, January 6th, is the official real start of the year. Thanks to the wonkiness of Christmas and New Year’s Day falling on Wednesday, the weird, liminal in-between times were even weirder than usual this year.
Or so I tell myself.
Because it was only yesterday, in an epic morning pages session, that I felt like I’d come back home to myself and my writing. It was such a relief, and it felt so good, and it reminded me of how much I like this thing we do called writing.
It can be rough to pull yourself away from the force field of the holidays. And up until now, there has not been any polar-bear plunging into the writing in my house. And I know I’m probably not the only one. So here is what I’m reminding myself and you:
The best writing is the writing you actually do.
Because when we get pulled away from our writing, it can be hard to get back into it. And sometimes even when we have time again, it is hard to get back into it because our brains get in the way. They send us messages like, your writing has to be good. You have to know what you’re doing. You don’t know what you’re writing about, how can it be any good? You haven’t written in awhile. You’ve probably lost your touch. You were never very good anyway.
All this chatter makes it nearly impossible to connect with your WIP, hard to remember how good it feels to write. I love my brain in all its oddities a lot, but I also suspect that it is lazy. And thinks that writing is going to be a lot of hard work. Which it is. But it is hard, good work.
And in case you need a reminder that not all writing has to be good right off the bat, here’s this from Hanif Kureishi, “….writers are in the business of producing waste, out of which something valuable might emerge.”
You are waiting to be writing again, whether it produces waste or brilliance. You got into this because you like it, after all. Because you read books are are transported to other worlds and you want to do the same for other readers. You want to be part of the magic.
Your writing is waiting for you. And remember, the best writing is the writing you actually do. So plunge into that refreshing cold water and get a move on.
Love, light, and good writing,
Charlotte
P.S. Tell me your intentions! Hit reply to this email or leave a comment.
Class Announcement!
I’ll have a full post about the class coming up this Tuesday, January 6th.
I have several people who have requested I run an Artist’s Way class this year and so I’m going to. Ask and ye shall receive! (Seriously, that’s kind of how the world works.) Here are the details: I’m going to run the class through this Substack, with a weekly post on Tuesdays and a Friday afternoon Zoom in which we will discuss the weekly lesson, ask questions, chat, drink and chat. Kidding about the drinking. Kind of.
To be included in this class, all you have to do is become a paid member of this Substack. You can enjoy the Artist’s Way materials for as little as $8 a month. (Though it is cheaper to join as an annual subscriber and Founding Members get a zoom session with me to discuss their work.)
That’s it! Watch for the class on Tuesdays (as a post right here )starting January 14, and we’ll meet live on Fridays. (I will also record the session.) Please note: I’ve moved the start date back a date because I realized January 8th is still too influenced by the force field of the holidays. January 14th is the correct start date.
Paid members also get PDFs of my monthly prompt shares and more cool things I’m working on.
Books
The House In The Cerulean Sea, by T.J. Klune. This is a classic in the cozy fantasy genre and I’d never read it. Most of the humans in my family have read it and loved it but not me. So now, finally, I am reading it. I like it fine so far, but I’m not one of the rabid, raving, fans (of which there are many) yet.
Christmas is All Around by Martha Waters. I’m loving this book. It’s got a cranky, engaging-despite-herself proto who hates Christmas. Mainly because she was the childhood star of one of the most popular Christmas movies ever but hated acting. Now she has refused to participate in the reunion film, bringing the wrath of the internet down upon her. So she flees to London. As one does. There she endures the Christmas-loving family of her sister and meets the charming Graham. The characters and the setting are just what I’ve needed for the over-stuffed days around Christmas. Update: I loved this book, it turned out to be one of my favorites of the whole year. Great, fun, quirky characters.
Resources
A lovely piece from Hanif Kureishi, from which the quote above was taken.
For those of you into astrology, this is an excellent rundown on the bumpy ride 2025 promises.
From Brooke Warner, a post on updating broken links, sprucing up the about page, etc., which I need to make time to do!
Excellent chart on the various paths to publishing from Jane Friedman.
In case you are interested in writing cozy fantasy, K-lytics just released their first report on it.
Workshops in England and France
Information, including dates and cost, for our 2025 England workshops is now listed on our website. And heads up! Due to distractions beyond our control, we’ve moved the deadline for the early-bird discount to December 1. (Commit today with a promise to send the deposit and you’ve got it.) We’ve had several writers indicate strong interest in joining and a couple of sign-ups already, so we recommend registering soon.
I’ve just updated our France page as well!
And if you want a taste of the adventure that awaits, you can read my posts about this year here, and here, here, here, and here.
Other places to connect with me:
My website (badly in need of an upgrade)
Our workshop website
My original blog (now for archive purposes only, no longer updated, but damn there are a lot of articles on it)
See you on Tuesday with a full run-down of my Artist’s Way class!
I’m on the email list of the New Yorker (and I now have a subscription INCLUDING THE PRINT MAGAZINE, thanks to my son) and they sent out a story with a similar headline that was actually of little interest to me since it was all about things in NYC. And Roy uttered the sub-title in a text. I was pleased with how they went together.)
Charlotte, You've described that in-between space so well! You're right; the New Year begins on January 6th.
Just what I needed. And LOL: "It can be rough to pull yourself away from the force field of the holidays." So true. Lucky me that I have a follow-up meeting scheduled with you this week to go over your developmental edits on my novel. Cannot wait! Which is saying something bc I usually do dread getting back into the swing of this first week of the new year.