My Word of the Year

Dear Fellow Creatives, 

I plan to post regularly throughout 2024 with prompts, videos, and ideas to help spark creativity in myself and whoever wants to join me.  So let's begin here...

What Is Your Word of the Year for 2024?

As I finished my morning cup of coffee on the first day of January 2024, I thought about what I wished for my life this year.  I'm not entirely sure how it happened, since I have been trying for weeks to think of what my "word of the year" would be this year, but just then, out of the blue, I looked at my cup, and there it was, the word:

 "Courage"   

I suddenly felt a tingling in my fingers, and then a soft, warm heat spread throughout my hands.  THIS was my word and it was what I would use as inspiration to reclaim the creativity that I longed for and struggled to find in 2023.   

"Tell me, what is it you plan

to do with your one wild and precious life?"

--Mary Oliver

Life is short and precious.  I am blessed with the time and the opportunity to rededicate myself to cultivating my writing and art this year,   But do I have to the courage to share it in a blog?  

CREATIVITY...BOOM...or BUST???

Growing up in a small town in Midwestern USA, I spent much of my youth writing stories and poems, or  making art.  In high school I spent hours at a time drawing and painting in my bedroom.  During my senior year of high school, I decided to go to college and major in art.  And then life happened and my creativity was drowned out by my own lack of self confidence and the voices of those people who wished to dis-courage me.  I changed my major to something more "practical" and squelched that yearning for a life of creativity that I had once longed for.  

In short, I lost my courage to create, and thus began a decades-long period of creative bust.

A few years ago, I found myself once again in the middle of a creative boom.   My kids were older and I found myself using creativity as therapy to deal with recovery from breast cancer and other struggles.  I began, once again, to literally live and breathe to create.  

It began with writing and journaling, and somehow evolved into making my own journals, specifically junk journals, that I wrote in every night.  Within a few weeks I started to share the junk journals that I made out of up-cycled materials.  I sold them, gifted them, and taught workshops on making them.  This veritable BOOM of creativity lasted until the Covid-19 pandemic, when it took a slightly different turn.  

During the pandemic lockdown, I started a zoom group with several friends.  We called it Crafty Zoom Girls, and together we worked on exploring creative journaling, mixed media art, poetry, and all kinds of other fun creative adventures.  

Soon, life returned to normal after Covid-19.  I continued to work on my journals and art, but I gradually became less and less inspired.  I was also blessed in 2023 with some pretty exciting travel adventures that took much of my time and energy away from creative efforts.  And then this past fall, my home became an empty nest when all of my children moved out of the house.  I struggled to find my creativity in this new life without my kids.  I tried, but couldn't seem to replicate my previous passion for art and journaling,    

So here I am, feeling more inspired to try again...ready to dive into the New Year.  

Will 2024 be a Creative Boom or Bust?  

Do I have the courage to continue?  

Will you join me to find out?  

Please share your "Word of the Year" in your comments below and follow my blog!  

Love, Christine