Episode 171: Look out 2023

This week we’re talking about our word/phrase for the year and a few goals we hope to achieve in 2023. Choosing a word or phrase for the year has been a helpful way for us to set an intention. It’s a bit softer than using a firm goal and has proved to be a good metric to guide us as we step into new experiences throughout the year.

The Verbivore picked two phrases for this year. The first: To be open to what the experience has to offer. She hopes to enter into this new year without baggage and expectation, letting each moment unfold.

Her second phrase is: to engage in the present moment with attention and intention. Last year was very chaotic for The Verbivore and she’s had to juggle her attention so much, but she’s hoping this year is different. That even in the chaos, she would be intentional with slowing down and grounding in the present moment.

Fable picked the word eclose or eclosion, which is similar to hatch but for an insect. She felt like butterfly soup in a chrysalis the past few years and there has been this slow steady eclosion starting to happening in her life. She wants to come forth as a mature adult and let go of some of the insecurity that she’s carried around for her first 40 years of life.

This applies to her writing, as well. She hopes to take her writing into a place that’s mature and well developed. She wants her books to grow to fullness and spread their wings.

In the course of this conversation we also talk about the difference between high level story crafting and line level writing. And we discuss particular practices we want to start integrating into our writing life in order to improve over the course of the coming year.

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore

Notes (books and resources mentioned in the episode):

Music from: https://filmmusic.io
’Friendly day’ by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
Licence: CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Bethany Stedman