Happy New Year!
My favorite books of 2024, my favorite traditions, and more.
The End of My Writing Hibernation
Hello again!
I’m back from a long hiatus — not of writing itself, but of my writing being shared/available/public/read. I wrote more last year than I’ve ever written before — a novel, short story, multiple screenplays, etc — but, as often happens in the world of publishing and screenwriting, none of it has seen the light of day (yet!).
I realized, at the end of the year, that I’m exhausted by this kind of writing. The past few years have been dominated by it. But this isn’t why I write. I don’t write for my words to end up in a desk drawer or in a forgotten folder on my computer. I don’t write so that at the end of the day I have a bunch of things that I’m not able to ever show more than two or three people. I write to share, to be read, to connect with others.
This year, I’ve made up my mind: I’ll still write the novels and the screenplays and the pilots and the pitches and the short stories and the book proposals, but I will focus a great deal of my energy on things I am able to share, things that will be able to be read by others.
My Favorite Books of 2024
I’ve just updated the Reading List on my website, which now has all the books I read in 2025. I only read 35 books this year (a record low for me), but nearly all of the books I read were wonderful. I wrote up a post on my site about the books I loved the most, which you can find here: My Favorite Books of 2024.
New Year Traditions
There are two important things I do at the beginning of each year.
The first is to make a new list of goals, figure out how I’m going to break those goals down into smaller pieces so that I can accomplish them over the upcoming year, then make a new January notebook. I wrote about my “notebook” process before, in Squarknote #5:
The second thing I do is make a new “Good Things” box. 2025 will be my third year of doing this, and I have to say, it is such a wonderful habit that we have built as a family. Opening the box up at the end of the year together and reading about all the good things that happened throughout the year is now the highlight of every New Year’s Eve for our family. Earlier today, I wrote a post on my website about it, which you can find here: My Favorite New Year’s Tradition: The “Good Things” Box.
What are your favorite New Year traditions?
What I’m Reading
My first book of the new year is I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith. I started reading it at one o’clock in the morning, and was instantly hooked.
What I’m Listening To
After multiple trips to Italy, I’m trying to finally learn more Italian, and am finding the Pimsleur app to be really useful. Whenever I’m going for a walk or doing chores around the house or driving the kids to school, you’ll find me listening to Pimsleur Italian Level 1. (You can find the app in the app store, btw. I highly recommend it and they have a ton of languages.)
Note: I can’t figure out how to turn back on Substack subscriptions but will hopefully figure it out soon. Once I do, I’ll let the archive and all posts be available to everyone but only paid subscribers will be able to comment.