Is this how its going to be – one post every year? I had high hopes for fattening up the content in 2023 but clearly it wasn’t to be.

And why? Well it isn’t all bad news, I think….

I actually committed to the novel this year and made significant in roads, the most I’ve written in a long time. But with all the new ideas and inspiration I’ve created a greater mountain of work. I’ll still be editing this beast on my death bed. And like any hesitant writer I’m constantly in two minds (depending on how far the hormones have fallen): it’s not that bad, carry on, versus, have you really been writing this year six-level-pile-of…. for the last ten years? Tear it up and get rid.

I admit I have been comparing myself to the brilliance of pulitzer prize winning Barbara Kingsolver and finding my words sorely wanting. Not so long ago I listened to a podcast about giving up on the dream which featured a would-be novelist and views from a psychologist. The writer realised she wasn’t a novelist after all and the years of bashing away at it had made her unhappy. Once she’d made her decision, a weight lifted and a new door opened teaching creative writing in a school. The psychologist emphasised the importance of reassessing our goals. That dreams change over time: what felt right back then may no longer segue with who we are now, and its okay to move on. It isn’t failure.

So I admire the courage of writers who have the self honesty to admit the time to throw in the towel. The daring to let go of the dream and shelve their work for something new.

I don’t have that kind of fortitude. Instead, I insist on vainly pushing through six feet of snow. I just can’t let this damn novel go.

Perseverance to the point of folly.

Still, I have to ask the question: Why am I doing this? Is this really fulfilling me? Or have the stock piles of testosterone simply run dry? I guess it boils down to the reason for writing….. to be published or for pure self expression? Its not and will never be the day job – its just a hobby, like tinkering underneath a car bonnet only with imagination and a new turn of phrase.

But hey, at least I cracked on with it this year.

And what else of 2023?

It rained an awful lot. March and April and May. The sun finally appeared in June and after more persistent inclemency during July and August, its rays returned in September, the garden overgrown and soggy. The child became a teenager. Now she’s taller than me and has a tongue sharper than lime. She made me read the Scythe series, a dystopian I rather enjoyed where life is eternal and death is metered out (by Scythes) to keep over population under control. We subsequently bonded over conversations about life and death, her mind ripe with philosophy and ideas. The fulfilment of witnessing her very bright mind outstripping mine.

I ran another hilly half marathon and 10k around the streets of central London and swam at the lake but faltered on the downward dogs and headstands, so much so that by December I was out of flexibility on some of my trusted poses. What did I think was going to happen at fifty-three?

An ice bath was purchased and honestly, even though I eschew the cold with passion, its been an epiphany: goodbye night sweats and mood swings, hello calm and focus. Full submersion up to the chin is easier than the chilly bullets of a cold shower. The hardest part is the anticipation, the resistance to stepping into a vat of cold but once in and the body acclimatised, its wonderfully exhilarating and peaceful, especially with the view of an ever-changing garden, or the dark silence of an evening dip. The sole motivator for doing this counter-intuitive madness (my daughter thinks I’m bonkers) on a mostly daily basis is knowing the outcome. I even braved 1 degree for a couple of minutes during a recent icy snap and aside from the life affirming high, it was such a personal achievement – who knew I had it in me.

So cold and wet sum up this year, with some writing, and a lot of grit at the coal face of the day job. I worked hard, earned more (to eat the mortgage) but took less holiday which in hindsight wasn’t the best of ideas. The ice tub kept me going, just. The warmest pocket was Christmas, and one that will be remembered purely for its ease and the company of the teenager. We snuggled up and watched oldies (Its a Wonderful Life, of course) and the movie that has become a Christmas staple, Greta Gerwig’s version of Little Women, now one of my all time favourites. (I admit to a perennial crush on Jo March). We stuffed our faces and went for the best local walk on Christmas Day where the only sounds mid afternoon were the light rustle of spent autumnal leaves and birds with a lot to say. Every ten minutes we stopped to appreciate the quiet, imagining we were the only two alive. It sounds like any other Christmas but it wasn’t. Times have been bumpy this year, so many parenting potholes and failures, but this Christmas (she will be at Dad’s for the next one) helped to resolder the joints that had come undone.

I want to move into 2024 with sense of unplanning and curiosity. I would like not to know what’s around the corner. 2023 was about a reset but it didn’t pan out that way. But maybe there will be a little more yoga and a little more writing and holidaying over the next twelve months.