Hello Fellow Children’s Writers and Friends,

It’s been a long time. I planned on apologizing and explaining and listing what you’d missed and… and… urgh. Forget it, let’s just say 2023 was quite the year and I’m looking forward to 2024. Despite my share of poor health, I am so grateful for the clarity and sometimes forced opportunity it provided me.

I have reassessed as I generally do at the end of the year anyway, but with a much clearer vision and path for: my own, my family’s and my community’s future. I’m certain you’ll hear more about mine and my community’s path.

The interesting thing is that you may not. I’ve rediscovered enjoying events, moments, time without the obsessive need to share on the socials. I’ve learned again how to simply enjoy, without posting, which bothered me a lot last year, but I simply didn’t have the energy to ‘do the thing’ and post about it.

I’ve dropped FOMO too, it’s exhausting.

I’m following my own path as I should have done all along. Following your own path though, is scary. Until you’re ready that is. I’ve skirted around the edges for sometime now, clarifying, gaining courage, gaining experience, establishing contacts and networks so I feel I good deal braver. If I’m trapped or if I fall, I know I have the hands of my own personal team holding tight to and circling below with the trampoline that I can safely land on and bounce back from.

Confusing? Sorry, it’s not entirely clear to me either, but I know I love to teach, just not in a classroom and so I’m working on ways to do it elsewhere by year’s end. I know I need to create and so I will stop focusing on what might be wanted and instead create what makes me feel content. I know I love my community, so I’ll do what I can to uplift and promote it. To paraphrase Motormouth (Queen Latifah) in one of my favourite Hairspray songs, I may not know exactly where I’m going, but ‘I know where I’ve been’ and that is enough to tell me what my next steps are.

A lifelong learner, I’ve finally learned enough to act, or should I say I finally have enough confidence to act, because the anomalous point is that doing the thing is the best way to discover and understand it.

That is why my Word for the year is Intention, strongly supported by Awareness and Focus.

I’m also making a change, or at least making it official. You can expect four (4) posts from me this year. Who knows, there may be more, but I’ll aim for four.

Farewell fellow travellers,

Savour the quest,

Journeygirl