Welcome to the January lull.

I don’t know about anyone else, but this time of year makes me feel like a bag of frozen peas. I’m here. I’m ready to be cooked for good use. Yes, no one’s in the mood for those nutrients yet. Sure, everyone says they’re on a diet after New Year’s, but we know they’re sneaking a few leftover cookies and candy canes. At least I am.

The older I get, the more I try to enjoy the slowdown. It’s not easy. I wake up with a million thoughts in my head, and they all have to go somewhere or try to do something.

Maybe that’s why I write these things. The words want to feel important, as if being typed out means they’re real, instead of imaginary sounds that have yet to be uttered. Maybe that’s why I spend the winter slowdown counting up work and trying to pretend as if getting 100 or 1,000 papers published will ever satisfy that burning desire to write, submit, and write again.

Whyever is not a whatever. So here I am, writing. Writing, writing, writing, and finding that 2025 held some notable writing, if anything I write will ever host a notably writey writing.

I was able to see 257 of my works published. Not my best year, but not the worst. I also had my 2,000th piece of writing published. That is a best for me. And though the list goes on, I have to say that the freedom or continuing to write through illness, injury, and crying children climbing all over my face is an accomplishment in itself.

I never stop, and I hope I never will. Writers never really retire, and though I’m nowhere near retirement age, I do often wonder how many words I can work into something of use before my hands are turned to stone by the growing decades.

Sorry to disguise an “end of year” or “New Years” post in such a way, but sometimes a freewrite does what it wishes. My strange twist into journalism doesn’t often allow for such writing anymore, so I’m in a thoughtful weirdness as I have some time to think and write without a pitch.

Good morning to all, and to all a good write.