Parentheses Pub, All The Good Things Jar, Rejection Competition and Cup, and My 3 Year Plan

First Talk Story post of 2023 and I want to talk about the things I am doing to make it a positive year for my writing life.

Let’s start with my publication in Parentheses Journal for my flash about weight loss and mother-daughter relationships - Lose 10 Pounds in 3 Days. I hadn’t known the pub date and had hoped it would be my first pub of the new year, and while technically I received the notification on the 1st in Japan - in the US it was still the 31st - so I decided to leave it as my last pub of 2022.

I am grateful to Electra Rhodes for inspiring me to create a Rejection Cup last year - I made about 15, 500 yen in rejections (I didn’t come close to my 20, 000 yen goal because I didn’t receive the avalanche of rejections I thought I’d get at the end of the year).

This year, I have made a new cup and I have also joined the Rejection Competition curated by Reneé Bibby so I will have two ways to celebrate my rejections instead of becoming depressed by them.

El also inspired me to create an All The Good Things Jar where I will write down the good/great/amazing things that have happened to me over the year, so that at the end of the year, I can read them all and remember all the wonderful and positive events of the year!

Final El inspiration (and a little bit of Matt Kendrick’s too) was to make a 7-year plan - but there’s no way I could do that… but I thought hey maybe a 3-year plan was doable…

I will say just thinking about this right now is giving me massive anxiety but it’s here and it’s organic and can be changed at any time. I don’t have to pressure myself for anything (I whisper to the anxious part of my brain who is freaking out about it lol).

I hope your new year has started out well and that your year is filled with creativity! Sending light and love! We can do it!