2023: The Year of the Writer

Writing to Author Your Life

2023 is the Year of the Writer! In addition to prosperity and romance, Soft Wood years are excellent for artistic creativity, academic achievement and writing. This element’s energy is especially supportive of writing copy for entrepreneurs, writing essays for students and writing manuscripts for authors. Spend time writing this year. Write down your goals and intentions. Write out your thoughts and feelings. Write for business and pleasure. Write your body of work. Write in your leisure time. Write articles or blogs, short stories or a novel, poetry or non-fiction. Even if you’re not a professional writer, you can benefit from this fortunate energy in your personal life. Handwrite letters to people. Keep a daily journal. Instead of just posting selfies with hashtags on Instagram, compose a meaningful message or write an interesting caption.

Writing a Letter

2023 is the year to bring letter writing back. Write letters to your lover, best friend or pen pal. Write love notes for your family to find around the house, in the car or in their packed lunches. Write a letter to the editor. Write letters to your past or future self.

Paper is made from Soft Wood trees like the evergreen pine and spruce, deciduous hardwood trees like birch and temperate forest trees like hickory. 

To romanticize your letter writing experience, get some beautiful stationary and fountain pens. Or, have some stationary and pens personalized with your name, initials or logo. Learn calligraphy lettering, practice cursive or work on your handwriting.

Writing an Email

Sometimes people prefer to type their letters. Composing an email can be a good way to work through what you are thinking and feel like you need to communicate. It gives you an opportunity to say what’s on your heart and get it off your chest. Clicking the send button is optional. The exercise of writing often provides the clarity you needed to know where you stand on a situation. The person you were writing to may or may not need to actually receive or read your email.

Writing Morning Pages

Morning pages is a daily practice anyone can do whether or not they are a writer or artist. It’s a great way to clear your head before your day begins. All you need is a notebook and a pen.

To practice this daily ritual, write three pages in longhand. Do it first thing every morning. Write whatever comes to you in a stream of consciousness. 

Unlike keeping a diary, morning pages are not intended to be a record or chronological account of your life. It’s just an opportunity to write down whatever is on your mind. You can use journaling prompts, make lists, do creative writing exercises, workout solutions to problems or explore answers to life’s questions. 

Keeping a Journal

Journaling can be one of the most important daily rituals you can do for your mental health and emotional well being. It’s an opportunity to articulate your thoughts, express your emotions and process how you are feeling. It’s a form of therapy that’s completely free.

Before my account got hacked, I would often see posts on Facebook that honestly belonged in a journal as an evening entry or in a notebook as a brain dump, not on the Internet. Instagram has a never ending supply of pictures of what people ate today and YouTube has thousands of day in the life videos of people’s outfit of the day, workout of the day and coffee or green smoothie of the day. These “influencers”even admit that they’re documenting their life and making videos so they can watch them back later.

That’s what photo albums, home videos and journals are for. No one needs to know what you do all day every day. Write it down!

Writing Posts

While there are a few pictures of me online, I’ve never once posted a selfie. What I do instead is use my one social media platform, Instagram, as a mini blog. I express my opinions and share my thoughts on my personal account on a regular basis.

There are lots of social media platforms to choose from. Maybe Twitter’s brief tweets and threads are more your style. Or, maybe speaking to a community or private group on Facebook is a better fit for your personal brand or business.

Whatever you choose, don’t just scroll. Write something!

Writing a Blog

For longer form essays or articles, a blog can be a great platform. You can write about what you know, what you do or what you’re learning. You can write to establish yourself as an expert in your field. Or, you can write a personal blog about the things that interest you, inspire you or are important to you.

For writers, blogs can be a great way for us to self-publish monthly, weekly or even more often. We don’t have to wait until a manuscript is finished to get published. We can publish our writings ourselves any time. And Substack is the perfect place to do it!

I wrote my first blog in 2011. Since then I’ve had numerous blogs on three websites. Recently, I moved three of my blogs to Substack - where the readers are. Feng Shui Yourself is about classical Feng Shui and The 8 Elements. HER Rituals offers guidance for creating spiritual and self-care practices for sovereign women. And Pearls of Wisdom is my personal blog where I share my interesting point of view.

Writing a Poem

Poetry is not for everyone. You may like to read poetry but find that it’s not your favorite genre to write. Or, that writing poems is just not fun for you or your forte.

If that’s the case, experiment with different types of poetry. Start with a haiku or limerick. Poems don’t all have to be epic or sonnets or even rhyme. 

My favorite way to write poetry is to write lyrics to a song. I wrote my first song when I was 9 to the piano duet, Heart & Soul. I called it Blue Skies.

Blue Skies

Where the mountain and the rivers flow

Where the bluebirds sing a hello

And there’s me

O’re the plains

And all across the ocean

Where the pines grow

That’s where you’ll find me

~ Dara Whaley, age 9

Writing a Paper

If you’re a student, you’re writing papers for school. In elementary, maybe it’s a book report. In middle school you’re writing about current events. In high school, you’re learning how to write essays. As you apply to college or a university, you’re writing a personal statement. Then, in the higher levels of academia you’re writing many papers for your classes and eventually even a thesis for your master’s or a dissertation for your doctorate degree.

2023 is a great year to excel in your studies and advance in your academic career through your writing. You can polish your writing skills and master the art of writing. Or, take a creative writing class to continue growing and having fun with your writing outside of your other studies.

Writing a Book

It’s said that everyone has a book in them. While not everyone is a writer, everyone does have something to say. So whether you hire a ghost writer or have your dictation transcribed or write it yourself, write this year. Even if it’s just a short story or a memoir, write it down or type it up.  

You don’t ever have to publish it if you don’t want to. Just write as an expression of self-authoring. Then, decide if you’d like anyone else to read it.  

I like Substack for blogs, Notion to organize my notes and Scrivener to write my books. Share in the comments what you’ll be writing this year and your favorite writing apps or software programs. 

☯

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