Mindy Carlson

For a number of years now (I’m too lazy to look back in my past blogs and newsletters to give you a precise number), I’ve selected One Little Word to help me focus my intentions for the coming year. It’s like choosing a theme or a mood I’m hoping to evoke and invoke for the next 365 days.

Last year’s word was Resilience.

HooooBoy.

Given the posts on my Facebook feed the past 12 months, I feel like I need to apologize to the world for that one. But I hope you also resil-ed the hell out of 2024.

Looking back at the happy times and the times where I struggled helped me to figure out what my word for 2025 should be. It was hard, y’all, and I’m a bit ground down from all the resilience-ing I had to do. With all that floating in my head, my One Little Word is:

Nurture.
Verb.     To care for and encourage the growth or development of.
              To cherish a hope, a belief, or an ambition.
Noun.    The process of caring for and encouraging growth or development
of someone or something.

In 2025, I’m going to nurture myself. I’m going to care for my mental, spiritual, and physical health. I’m going to cherish my hopes and ambitions. I’m going to be gentle and kind to myself when my writing is difficult and when my progress toward my goals seems soul-crushingly slow. 

This is a journey, not a race.

In case you’re curious, here’s a smattering of my goals for 2025. Read 80 books Go on outings that inspire and nurture my creativity Rewrite manuscript 1 Do a second edit of manuscript 2 Plot and draft story idea (possibly a series) Knit most evenings I’m going to treat these goals as tools and opportunities to nurture my creativity. I love writing. I literally can’t stop myself from dreaming up stories, but I need recapture what it feels like to play with ideas instead of rigidly plowing along with the first idea that comes to me. I need to reignite the whimsy and fun of child-like creativity.

Consequently, my newsletter this year is going to feature ideas and tips for nurturing and cherishing your mind, spirit, and creativity. I’m very excited to have you along for the journey. If you have a friend who you think would like to join us as we explore creativity, please forward this edition to them and encourage them to sign up.

Have you chosen One Little Word for your year? Share it! I may feature your words in an upcoming newsletter.
 
Happy New Year!
Mindy

P.S. In case you missed it, I was the featured guest on the Angie & Christie WriteNow! Podcast. It was a great discussion and I share some behinds the scenes bookworld stuff I’ve never talked about before. You can view it here.