Hello Fellow Children’s Writers and Friends,

At the halfway point of February, I felt it was time to post my Word(s) of the Year. For those of you who don’t know, I had Covid for the first time a few days before Chistmas and it hung around until New Year, about 9 days from memory. Memory ha! Anyone whose had Covid knows that this and accompanying energy levels are not at full capacity for some time afterward.

On the plus side, I had a much needed and truly good rest, accompanied by an acceptance of the limits mentioned previously. It was liberating to not push and push and push to get ‘it all’ done, without any of the usual guilt. I will agree certain rooms (cough cough dumping grounds) in the house have suffered for it, but my creativity has not and for a nice little bonus, it has also meant that once energy levels returned and brain fog lifted, I was even able to submit two books (mss) to publishers and one to my lovely mentor Crystal Corocher and it’s only half way through February— unheard of! 😱😎

I’m certain this is due to focussing on the words I chose during Julie Hedlund’s annual 12 Days of Christmas for Writers preparation ‘for your best writing year yet!’ I completed the tasks mostly mentally which isn’t strictly the idea, but was as much as I could muster at the time. So, the beautiful images for my words of the year remain in my head— no sense going back now, the point of the challenge is moving forward once you’ve reflected.

So thank you for already working your magic, ‘Words of the Year’, which I can finally record (and so not lose or forget) here. TRUST which I have had to learn to do over the last couple of months and BUILD. I love the energy and reciprocity they contain. Trust, I’ve rediscovered, is needed to build (on last year’s learning) and in building, more trust is acquired. This then is required to build even more and so on. They are words which naturally meld together and support each other seamlessly and with these words prioritised in my increasingly fogless brain, I see a wonderful year ahead.

Farewell fellow travellers,

Savour the quest,

Journeygirl