I enjoy watching the award shows for cinema—the European Film Awards, the Golden Globes, and the Oscars. Because Emilia Perez won Best Film, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Screen Writer, and Best Editing late in 2024 at the European Film Awards, I streamed the film to watch it. It is a powerful story. This week, it was also awarded Golden Globes for Best Musical or Comedy and Best Non-English Language Film, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Original Song.
When Jon M. Chu accepted the award for Cinematic and Box Office Success at the Golden Globes for his film, Wicked, he made an inspirational comment that caught my ear, he said, “a radical act of optimism.” For the rest of 2025, I will keep this statement in my awareness and attempt to be a writer who engages in radical acts of optimism.
What will I be optimistic about? My writing, my life, and the world around me. I noticed recently that I tell myself, “I have to write.” I realized that it sounds like a command, so I will change this statement to “I love to write and I will reserve time to do so.” My life has been quite different over the last two years because of the death of loved ones. This year, I will be more appreciative of all my living loved ones and let them know that I think about them and love them. Given the shift in politics in the world around me, I have wondered what is wrong with average citizens who make terrible choices in elections. This year, I will focus on clarifying traditional democratic values when I can do so.
My Writing Goals for 2025
1. Continue to develop my poetry and connections with other poets: Attend Bardic Trails, Cannon Mine Poetry, the Colorado Poetry Center events, and the Naropa events. I will also lead the BWA Poetry Circle and write one poem each week.
2. Finish my first novel and query agents( IW): Reorganize to clarify the plot and the storyline for each character, write necessary chapters, and edit existing chapters to fit the reorganization.
3. Finish my second novel, (G): Reorganize to clarify the plot and the storyline for each character, write necessary chapters, and edit existing chapters to fit the reorganization.
4. Continue to work on my third novel, (PW): Reorganize to clarify the plot and the storyline for each character, write necessary chapters, and edit existing chapters to fit the reorganization.
5. Continue to develop a network of kindred spirits in the world of writing and publishing:
a. Boulder Writers Alliance: Attend Writers Who Read, the BWA Happy Hour, at least one silent writing session each month, and organize and lead the BWA Poetry Circle: I attended our first meeting of Gary Alan McBride’s Writers Who Read 2025 which provided a detailed analysis of Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr!
b. Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers: Pay dues and follow the newsletter.
c. Women Writing the West: Attend the online conference and continue to work with our critique group each month.
6. Document my writing progress through my blog and post it on the seventh day of each month, one blog per month in 2025:
Today is January 7, 2025. I am posting my first blog for this year. Despite my concerns about national politics, I am feeling positive and hopeful for 2025—I like the number! I am more comfortable in my own skin than I have ever been. I enjoy my friends and colleagues. I appreciate the wonderful individuals that I have met and worked with this past year and look forward to deepening these relationships. I enjoy the service activities that I accomplish. My knowledge of the local and state-wide poetry world has broadened considerably. The Zoom workshop I lead through the Boulder Writers Alliance Poetry Circle offers the opportunity to meet and collaborate with amazing poets. The other organizations I belong to offer friendship and remarkable connections.
A Line from an Inspirational Poem
When I was a high school senior, I represented my school at the State Speech Meet. The poem that I recited from memory was Renascence by Edna St. Vincent Millay—a serious poem for a seventeen-year-old. Here are a few lines from this long poem:
From Renascence (1917)
“…I know not how such things can be;
I only know there came to me
A fragrance such as never clings
To aught save happy living things;
A sound as of some joyous elf
Singing sweet songs to please himself…”
May you, my reader, sing happy tunes to yourself throughout the coming year!
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