The obligatory end-of-year wrap-up post you’ve been waiting for

The year in writing, recognition, loss, and life

If nothing else, 2024 for me was a year of transition and disruption. And — I hope — a year I learned to be more grateful and empathetic.

After 40 years of full-time work, much of it in academia, I entered a new phase of life last January. Some call it retirement, but it has hardly been that. My pursuit of creative writing and some freelance work has kept me busy enough. In addition, my wife and I and our cat had a couple of health scares that made us reevaluate our values and gave us greater insight into the workings of the U.S. health care system, the good, bad, and ugly of it. We also mourned the passing of a few friends from our church family and continue to honor their memory.

In other words, a lot of life happened in 2024. Here are some highlights from the year:

Continue reading “The obligatory end-of-year wrap-up post you’ve been waiting for”

A Thanksgiving season writing prompt

Create a cornucopia of ideas

Writer Brittany Ackerman recently shared what she calls a “rapid-fire” writing prompt just in time for the Thanksgiving holiday. I found this exercise helpful — not only as a way to practice writing but also as a way to practice gratitude. Because gratitude is what Thanksgiving is all about, right?

In her post — “Rapid-Fire Gratitude | Writing Prompt” — she writes:

Write a rapid-fire list of 24 (because we are closing out 2024!) things you are grateful for.  Choose 1 (or more) from your gratitude list and free-write a scene, a poem, dialogue– whatever comes to mind.

There you go. If you’re anything like me, you’ll think at the outset of this freewriting exercise that coming up with 24 things to be grateful for is a piece of cake (or pumpkin pie). But, reader, it’s harder than you think.

But don’t give up. Keep at it until you get a cornucopia full of gratitude. And then, get cooking — er, I mean, write!

Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay