I feel like an orange.
There I was, hanging on my tree, bright and plump, filled with joy and excitement for the new year. I was settled, content, gazing (perhaps you could say navel gazing) from my lovely perch out to the lush green grasses and sun-soaked sea beyond. Such a wonderful place to be.
And then someone came along and plucked me from my happy limb and said, “Oh, look at this beautiful orange no one’s eaten yet,” then proceeded to squeeze and squeeze and squeeze. Out poured almost every drop of juice in me, muddying the dirt over my tree’s roots.
But rather than juice, it was that special brand of hope reserved exclusively for new beginnings that sprinkled out; the excitement of what the next year will bring; the desire to create, to work, to do anything but sit at home and binge some show I didn’t even like all that much but kept putting on because I didn’t have the energy to start something new. It all puddled beneath the husk of the orange I used to be.
Maybe that’s all a little melodramatic. But as I wake up hours before the crack of dawn each morning, while the roosters are all nestled quietly in their coops (on sanctuaries, of course—there’s no such thing as animal agriculture in my fantasies), this is what I think.
While all my plans for creative endeavors came screeching to a halt this month, the creativity itself, thankfully, didn’t wane. I recently read Julia Bartz’s The Writing Retreat, and there was a line of dialogue that resonated with me before I could put my orangey feelings into words. The book’s protagonist watches from the audience when her literary idol calls out another accomplished author for stealing his best-selling story from his ex-girlfriend, saying his ex became too depressed to write after his betrayal.
It’s funny, how great art is so often tied to mental anguish; creativity and despair, kissing cousins to one another. But what about when that despair, or other uncontrollable forces, suck out all the energy it takes to create, leaving you as just a ripped rind in a soggy puddle?
Luckily, though I sometimes feel like it, I’m not actually an orange. I can pull those juices back in and fill myself back up, renew and replenish.
So, I’m happy to be saying sayonara to January and will be recommitting to my resolutions at the start of the new new year, February.
Except I don’t really consider them resolutions; I call them themes. It feels less absolute. A resolution is strict, a resolve to do something, a promise, a prison; it’s constricting, suffocating. A theme is more abstract; it gives me permission to veer off course when I’m feeling burnt out, to take a break and relax. (Didn’t realize I’d be doing that so soon.) In 2023, my theme was education.
For years, I had short stories languishing on my computer, collecting whatever the digital version of dust is. I would go back over them occasionally, dust them off, spiff them up a bit, but they largely remained unchanged. I didn’t have the tools to transform them from first drafts running at break-neck speed to the climax into true stories that someone, besides myself, would actually want to read and enjoy.
So last year I decided to immerse myself in the study of story. If I had any hopes of getting published, it was time to finally, at the very least, give it a good old college try. (Funny, since I have no formal education in creative writing, this was, in a sense, my own DIY degree.) I wrote out pages upon pages of notes from books, podcasts, and articles. Rather than sporadically re-reading my favorite books, I threw myself into reading new ones. With an analytical eye, I began examining how my new favorite authors constructed their stories.
Recently—just before the whole orange fiasco, which left me scrambling around in the dark—I had a lightbulb moment. The part of storytelling I’d been struggling with the most finally came into focus. I woke up one morning, and a short story I’d written (and quickly written off) nearly a year ago popped back into my head, and suddenly everything that didn’t make sense…well, made sense. I’m completely rewriting it now, and while the prose carries the standard clunkiness of a first draft, I can feel the gem hidden beneath the layers of dirt.
So, that’s my theme of 2024: practice. Use the knowledge I built up last year (and continue to study, if less strenuously) and put it into action. My hope is to revisit my old short stories and flash fiction and rewrite them all, but I know there are new ones waiting in the wings. (I’ve got one all about the orange fiasco marinating in the back of my mind now.) I’ll see where the road takes me.
be conscious, be kind, be vegan