F*ck New Year's Resolutions

Four anti-resolutions for 2025

Jan 10, 2025

Yes, that is an unashamedly clickbaity headline. (Made you click, though, huh?)

And yes, I probably should have published this a week ago — y’know, when everyone was actually setting their resolutions — but let’s not even pretend that I had the energy or inclination to do that.

Because, quite honestly, I stand by that title — fuck new year’s resolutions. Or, at least, fuck the pressure and restriction and showmanship of it all, when the focus seems to be more on bragging rights and perfectionism and the fearful avoidance of gross, crushing failure rather than actually just… I dunno, living your life?

Also, while we’re swearing at things: fuck the arbitrary marking of the new year in January when this is a spectacularly shitty time to start anything afresh. Especially if you’re in the northerly/westernish hemisphere, where we’re deep in the depths of wintry cold and gloom. We are still hibernating ffs.

Or, if you’re in other parts of the world, it may well be mid-freaking-summer — a frankly ridiculous time to be beginning a whole new year. Either way, there’s a long stretch ahead until we hit a more natural and auspicious starting point, be it spring or harvest time. And neither my body nor my mind is in the market for abrupt changes and mandatory renewals right now, thank you please.

Apparently I feel quite strongly about this. I apologise for the swearing.

But whenever I hear the word ‘resolution’, my brain instantly yells NO! in a screechy, over-tired toddler voice. Maybe it’s pathological demand avoidance, maybe she’s born with it. Or maybe a shift in perspective is needed to make any kind of change stick. Maybe a shift in the concept of ‘change’ is needed to make it feel more like a slow, imperceptible metamorphosis, instead. Maybe it’s all bullshit and I should just try to do more of what makes me happy?

(It’s probably that last one, isn’t it?)

I think my main beef with resolutions is the inevitable emphasis on the negative. What are you doing WRONG and what should you do BETTER? What aren’t you doing ENOUGH of and what should you do MORE of? What’s BROKEN and what needs FIXING? How can you be FASTER, work HARDER, rack up a bigger number of random, largely unimportant THINGS?

And with that mindset, I inevitably set a load of unattainable goals, immediately disappoint myself, feel like shit, and never want to do any of it again.

Hence: fuck resolutions.

Look, I realise I’m being a little whiney baby. And I promise there’s a point to this, besides raging against the concept of willpower. Because it feels like a culmination of all the waffling I’ve been doing around creative hibernation and ‘unfucking your writing’ and giving yourself a creative audit that has absolutely nothing to do with achievements or word counts or 'productivity’.

Which made me think:

What if we retconned our resolutions?

What if we looked backwards and considered at all the excellent shit we did and enjoyed in the previous year?

All the things we subconsciously resolved to do, consistently and effectively.

All the things that actually fucking worked without us even really trying.

What if we started from there?

Hack the system, babies.

Here’s what I got.

My top 10 good shit from 2024

In no particular order:

I joined a reggae samba band and learned how to drum the living shit out of a tamborim. I think I only missed maybe two rehearsals all year because I fucking love making an almighty racket with a bunch of drum-smashing lunatics.
I put myself out there and directed/stage managed some shows at a local amateur theatre because I’ve been talking about doing this since before covidtimes and it was top of my ‘saying yes to things’ list.
I put myself out there again and taught a three-part Shakespeare workshop for actors because someone dared me to do it and my ego and my imposter syndrome held hands and went, “Why the fuck not?”
I put myself out there yet again and ran some online writing workshops because I wanted to challenge myself to reinvent old skills into new ones and create something that was entirely my own.
I started knitting/crocheting again after a years-long break and spent a full 12 months making a king-size blanket because I am very bad at estimating timeframes, but once I was invested, nothing on earth was gonna stop me fulfilling this vision.

I wrote and designed a weird interactive fiction thing and figured out how to produce and publish it because repeated rejection doesn’t mean giving up, and if I didn’t do it, it wasn’t ever gonna happen.
I sent my pilot script out to festivals and beta readers and got a whole bunch of valuable feedback to help me redraft because GOD I love this story and I’m really determined to make it the best it can be, which means being brave and laying it out raw and bloody for the crows to peck at.
I re(re)started a novel idea that’s been pinging around my head for far too many years because WHY THE FUCK NOT? And why have I been putting it off for so fucking long? Jesus, just do the stupid thing, Jo.
I cobbled together 365 pictures/videos from 2024 to make a collage using 1 Second Every Day because my friend recommended it and I thought it was a cool artistic thing to do and, y’know, it was an unexpected little joy that made me take notice of all the little things throughout the year.
I posted stuff to this heckin Substack for a full year because even though I actually never expected to do this one, or commit to it consistently, or actually build something that people might want to read, it’s been a genuine pleasure putting my words out there, and the investment of my time and thoughts has been so incredibly rewarding. (THANK YOU!)

Soooo, what did we learn?

What can I retcon for the future? What did I actually follow through with and take seriously and find joy in and want to do more of?

Because I certainly did not plan any of these things at the beginning of 2024. I was barely hanging on by my fingernails, trying to figure out how I was gonna get through the year, let alone have fun with it.

And yet. I did a lot of shit.

So what do all these things have in common?

Well:

A lot of them were a lot of hard work and a lot of them were terrifying and a lot of them were leaps of faith. Putting myself out there and saying yes.
A lot of them were about learning new skills, or re-learning old skills, or just trying something different.
A lot of them have nothing to do with writing at all, but still helped me find brainspace and motivation for creativity this year. Enriching, well-being-boosting stuff.
Also, a lot of them feel ongoing and open ended — in an exciting, future-possibilities kinda way — which means instead of ticking something off my ‘achievements list’ I get to keep on enjoying the process.

And won’t you look at that?

Four totally intangible, vague, unpredictably anti-resolutions to bring forward to 2025:

SAY YES TO COOL SHIT.

LEARN NEW SHIT.

DO MORE CREATIVELY ENRICHING SHIT.

ENJOY THAT SHIT.

Ta da! My 2025 mantra is full of shit.

Is it entirely vague and open to interpretation?

Yes.

But does it sound doable?

Also yes. And I bet you a shiny penny you can come up with a few things under each of those headings that you might like to maybe-possibly-definitely-but-no-pressure wanna try this year.

And then… let’s see what happens. See what unexpected items end up in the bagging area in 2025, and we’ll take it from there...

Um. This feels like kind of a contradiction after all that, but… I also have some actual tangible plans, too — so if you need a nudge to help you on your anti-resolution way, here are a few ways you can do stuff with me this year…

Some actual real life shit that is definitely coming up in 2025:

Mentoring & Editing

Do you have an early draft in need of some developmental guidance? A manuscript in need of a thorough copy-edit? Or maybe you just need someone to (gently) kick your arse, chase off your imposter syndrome, and help you get to The End?

I’m here for it.

Find out more about the different types of editing services I offer here:

Let's get editing

And choose a coaching package or book an intro mentoring call right over here:

Let's talk about your writing

[Psst — scarcity alert: I’m already getting fairly booked-up for January but have some spaces for both editing and coaching from Feb onwards… Already some pencilled-in possibilities for March though, so please get in touch asap if you’d like to grab a spot!]

The Forever Workshop Community

This year I have the absolute pleasure of hanging out at The Forever Workshop as their new community manager and in-house editor.

Basically, I’m on hand throughout all of this year’s workshops and courses for chat, support and general guidance — as well as my own little Community Corner for more in-depth writerly discussions, feedback and beta-swapping!

The first workshop of 2025 just started and it’s seriously good: How REAL Humans Talk — Dialogue Writing Essentials with Lauren Veloski.

And there’s a whole year’s worth of other workshops lined up for you, including….

Take it from Shakespeare — 7 April 2025

I’m back at The Forever Workshop as an instructor in April with a brand new workshop all about ~~stealing~~ borrowing from the bard himself! Here’s the blurby mcblurb:

What can we borrow from Shakespeare when it comes to our writing?
A love of linguistics and a bold disregard for the literary ‘rules’!
In this generative workshop, we’ll use Shakespearean techniques to experiment with rhythm, rhetoric and repetition. We’ll explore methods of manipulating and subverting language to create layers of meaning. We’ll push boundaries, play with form, mix up syntax, and have a whole load of fun mucking about with our writing.
Whether you write prose, poetry, long or short, borrowing methods from Shakespeare can help to elevate each sentence, bring a unique voice to your work, and make every line sing. No previous Shakespeare knowledge or literary snobbery required — just a passion for words, words, words.

Thread Lit Mag - submissions open 15 Jan!

Outside of Substack, I’m co-editor of Thread Lit Mag — an experiment in micro fiction publishing— over on Threads (and Insta)!

We’re about to launch our next subs call on 15 Jan with the most excellent theme devised by my partner-in-literature, Natalie Reilly.

Guidelines are super simple:

500 characters or fewer (i.e. does it fit in a Threads post?)
Open to prose or poetry on our chosen theme
Free to submit — and we are a paying market (very cool update on the $$ coming soon!)
Submit by tagging us on Threads or DMing via Instagram
A ‘like’ means a decline; a repost means an acceptance

Read our latest issue to get a sense of what kinda tiny creations we love, and hope to see you submit your work when we re-open!

Other pending future stuff...

Still noodling out the logistics but I’m pretty certain I’ll be running a workshop at this year’s Flash Fiction Festival in Bristol…
And I have some exciting plans underfoot with the glorious Katy at
voidspace zine
for a secret project that’s getting its final tweaks as we speak… (ooh and check out all the latest Voidspace events too because there are a tonne of great things happening over there this year!)
Aaaaaaaand I’d really like to run another round or two of my Unfuck Your Writing and Write What You Know workshops this year, along with some other percolating workshoppy ideas I’m putting together — so please give me a ‘heck yeah’ in the comments if you’d be interested in any of those!