Old Year - New Year

Well, the task of writing the last post of 2012 falls to me. What is it about the end of one year and the beginning of the next one which seems so special and important? The 1st January is only another date on the calendar and yet in the lead up to it we (most of us) spend a great deal of time looking back over the past twelve months – assessing, regretting, celebrating – and looking forward to better times. We always hope for better, don’t we?

It’s a bit like editing our books, this review of the past year. We look back over the chapters we’ve written and realise some things don’t work well. That scene in the second chapter really has to go, as do the words we tend to overuse.  On the other hand, the chapter we struggled over for ages actually reads pretty well and the new character we introduced in chapter four adds a whole new dimension to the story.

Of course, we can’t go back to edit our real lives the way we do our books. Can’t change the parts we didn’t enjoy, bump off the characters we don’t much care for or re-write the scenes which didn’t work. Perhaps that’s why the change of year is special. It marks some kind of climax and conclusion as well as a new beginning.

We maybe can’t change the bad events and disappointments which happened in the last months but we can try to draw a line under them and look forward to the New Year with fresh hope

When I was young and given a diary for Christmas I used to amuse myself by opening it at random pages. I’d stare at the blank pages, wondering what I’d be writing about on, say, August 3rd. Now, I wonder what stories are going to be written. It’s exciting and mysterious – are the stories in my head already waiting to be written down, or will events over the next weeks and month be the trigger? What things will happen in my life to prompt writing new poems?

To all the writers and readers who enjoy our Novel Points of View blog, I wish a happy 2013.