"even magic takes good planning"
recording + highlights from the 2026 planning party, plus so many resources for creativity and joy in the year ahead
Thank you to everyone who attended the new year’s planning party earlier this week! It was really wonderful—so many good ideas and reflections and resources shared among a smart, thoughtful group. We spent our time together reflecting on 2025, looking ahead to 2026, and dreaming a little to create a vision for the year. If you want a little more practical nuts and bolts planning kind of tips, I’ve linked lots and lots of that below.
And if you’re craving our new year’s tradition of a Write More vision board party, don’t worry, we’re doing that, too! (Info right below the recording.)
As promised, the recording is here (I promise it’s not 100% my crazed face 😳), and there are tons of great resources below.
🔮 the fourth annual Write More, Be Less Careful vision board party—Sunday, January 11, 1pm EST/10am PST 🔮
And, by popular demand, we’re doing a vision board party, too! I’ll be cohosting with Gemma Hartley, creator of the great newsletter No One Loves an Angry Woman. Help us pick a time in the poll below!
✨ and now the poll is closed! you can register here to join us. ✨
The new year’s planning party was all about taking some time to dream and craft a vision for the year. Related to that, here’s one overarching thought I’d offer you about new year’s and big dreams and setting goals, and it’s one that, in all honesty, I’m writing here to remind myself of, too: you’re not behind, and whatever you did or didn’t accomplish last year, you weren’t doing it wrong. There’s sometimes a kind of punishing bent to the new year/self-improvement industrial complex—like, list all the ways you fell short last year and how you’ll do better this year—and that’s not at all what this is about. You’ve got a whole new year ahead of you, and you can do so much in that time.
One example: Gillian McAllister has been doing great carousel posts on instagram lately about her life and writing process, and she shared one earlier this month where she mentioned writing a draft in eight weeks, then tossing it out (like, literally all the way out: she deleted the file!) and starting all over. Her point was that she had to write that first bad draft to discover what she’d done wrong so she could fix it.
My mind boggled: a whole novel draft, in eight weeks! But then I did some math: 80,000 words in 8 weeks is 10,000 words/week, or a fairly doable 2000 words a day, 5 days a week. If you can do half that (McAllister is writing full time; the vast majority of us have other jobs), you can get a draft done in 16 weeks. If you can do 500 words a day, that’s 32 weeks. It’s less than a year. And it’s certainly not infinity—which is the time horizon that I think often keeps us from even starting the big thing we’re dreaming about doing.
In other words, to use a favorite phrase from Elise Cripe: big things happen one day at a time.
reflection questions and so many resources for developing your vision and plans for 2026!
questions for looking back on 2025
What were 3 things that turned out better than you thought in 2025? Worse than you thought?
What was your best use of time? Money? Attention?
questions for looking forward to 2026
Picture yourself in 2030. It’s a perfect, regular day. Describe your surroundings and what you are doing, hour by hour.
Now picture yourself just 1 year from now - imagine being here, setting up your 2027. In the “best case scenario” what are you most proud of? What were your FAVORITE experiences of 2026?
What’s actually ahead of you in 2026? Milestone events, things you’re excited about, big goals and dreams?
🔮 tools for reflecting on 2025 and setting a vision for 2026 🔮
Kelcey Ervick’s Forget resolutions and words of the year. Choose a New Year’s Imperative instead. (from Nancy: I’ve got three imperatives facing me at my desk right now; one of them is ACT FAST, inspired by this Oliver Burkeman newsletter.
Heather Lanier’s Happies and Crappies of 2025
Inquire Within Reflection Deck
because you can make your own fresh start, other ways of thinking about time and the calendar
the Mayan calendar
Moon by Moon: A Guided Journal for a Year of Well-Being
Sarah Lyn Rogers’s Curiosity & Ritual, a seasonal newsletter aligned to solstice, equinox, and cross-quarter days
and last year’s vision board party, which Sarah and I hosted together!
🎨 creative inspiration for the new year ✍️
Wendy MacNaughton’s 30 Days of Drawing
writing workshops with the Writing Co-Lab, including Just Write the Thing: A Free New Year’s Workshop with Natasha Oladokun on Sunday, January 11th from 4-5pm EST (I’m signed up!) and the Ungodly Hour Writing Club (though their new, gentler time of 6-7.30am is actually a little too late for me, alas!)
📋 resources for getting into the nitty gritty of planning 📋
from my Fall 2023 planning party with novelist Erin Flanagan:
my Fall 2024 planning party, about the magic of picking one thing and finishing it
and a guest post by novelist Katharine Schellman, about planning for novel writing:
If this newsletter has helped you in your creative life, you can support me by becoming a paid subscriber or by ordering my new book, The Good Mother Myth.
Thank you for the incredibly kind mention!!!!
Wonderful reminder, thank you, Nancy! I think I need more than one day for shaking off deeply engrained expectations and reflection. Can we continue this approach to life/our work for at least another week, pls? How does New Year’s Week sound? 😉