My 2024 Intentions: A Year to Delight in My Processes

Magical fiction writing, joy in my processes and finding the light

The sun is shining in through the window. It’s a marvel, sunshine, after so many short cloudy days in the darkest weeks of the year. I have to squint slightly as I look at the laptop in front of me. It feels like hope.

I have done my yearly planning in stages. First, in the days between Christmas and the new year, off the back of my 2023 reflections. I pondered potential words of the year. What I wanted for the year ahead. Then, unsure, I took a break.

Some years, I find my word already in October, or at least the gist of it. Not this time. This year, it was elusive for the longest while. Maybe it’s because I’m the furthest away from concrete goals I’ve been since I started setting creative intentions.

From what to how

My 2023 was a year long shift. From running a creative coaching business part time, to being a full-time employed content writer. It was a year to reorganise how I spend my time, what I want to include in my life and not, and how I think about the different parts of my life.

In this transition, my word Frolic helped me prioritise activities of fun and joy, and the goal to embrace a well-rounded life guided me to consider a range of aspects as I established my new balance - from socialising to fitness to reading.

In the elevator at my job

Coming into 2024, my creative projects have an entirely different shape than they did one year ago, with this Substack in the center. And it’s a shape I feel very happy with.

Things have fallen into place, and in the absence of growing a business, there are few concrete goals I strive for in my own creative projects. I have always tried to set process focused goals, but even so, that process has been leading somewhere. Now, I’m not really aiming for a particular destination.

I’m happy with what I do, and I want to keep nurturing this well-rounded life I’ve established. So my intentions are shifting from focusing on what I do, to how I do them.

My word is Delight

My word for 2024 is a feeling. It’s the softness and lightness that I have felt in my creative projects towards the end of 2023. It’s the little extra that makes a moment feel special.

An evening in the first days of the year, I sat with this feeling that I was trying to put into a word. I lit a candle and turned on some music and created a new Pinterest board. I started pinning images that gave me the feeling I was aiming for.

The board filled quickly with pictures of dappled light on books and coffee cups, of women with cameras to their eyes, of writers in cafés and by windows, of adventures, of flowers and brunch and beautiful notebooks.

And my board fit the word I had been toying with perfectly. Delight.

Delight is a feminine, soft word. It’s by no means pushy, not really driving or striving. It’s the kind of word that notices little joys. It sits by the window in the sunshine, a cup of tea cradled in its hands. It knows to do the little extra for happiness, to create moments that feel delightful.

I pulled some of the pictures into my Notion, organised them and started adding little notes to anchor what the word symbolised for me. As I finished the page, I looked it over and with a little gasp, I realised I had created my goals.

From that joyful moment of creating a mood board, stepping into the feeling I wanted for 2024, I had organically written my goals. And that process perfectly reflects how I want do pursue creativity this year.

Look for the delight and joy in my processes

From novel writing and Substack writing to planner and tarot fun to meeting friends and going out to making brunch and attending hot yoga class to buying magazines and flowers.

My first goal is a broad one. It’s to look for delight and joy in my processes. It applies to my creative projects as well as other activities and just daily life.

For years now, I’ve talked about the importance of leaning into the joy of the creative process. It has been one of my core beliefs and methods as a creative coach, and something I’ve thought about a lot in my creative life.

But when my focus was on growing my business, the joy of the process retreated into the background of my focus. This is what I’ve reclaimed now that I do my own projects purely for my own sake.

In 2024, I want to continue focusing on my own inspiration, creativity and joy, and to delight in my various processes. Enjoy the balance I have built and keep nurturing the activities I do.

Write fiction for the magic, joy and delight

Tell the story you have fun telling. Read immoderately and only what you feel like reading.

I wrote that my creative life isn’t really aiming for a particular destination anymore. It’s true, almost. Because there is still one destination I have in mind: that of being a published author.

When I started sharing my creativity online, writing fiction was my main goal. It then quickly became secondary to the joys of creating content and the dream of running my own business.

For years now, I have had very little bandwidth for novel writing. It has been something I’ve done on the side of the thing on the side. I haven’t delved particularly deep into it, nor has it been a big priority.

Now, finally, I feel there is space for fiction writing. There is nothing else to figure out in my creative life. This Substack feels very established in how I want to run it, I’m not developing anything new, I don’t have goals or pressures to manage. Of course, I’m still working full-time, but I find that I have mindspace for my own projects as well, as long as I go gently and joy-led.

As fiction writing slides back into focus, I know that there’s one thing I need to deal with. And my word of the year is perfect for it.

I need to work on my process of writing fiction. I’ve always had a complicated relationship with my novel projects, and struggled with fear, perfectionism and procrastination. In the past, I’ve worked through a lot of it and had really good periods. But as the land lays at the moment, I don’t feel the lightness around fiction writing that I feel writing this Substack, for example.

This, I want to change.

Maybe writing a novel will always be a challenging project. But I’m certain it could be more enjoyable than it is now. The truth is, I haven’t prioritised my own enjoyment particularly highly in my novel projects.

My second goal of the year, then, is to write fiction for the magic, joy and delight. I am nothing if not a creative process nerd, and I’m excited to think about and try to figure this out during 2024.

In the spirit of focusing on the process of writing fiction rather than the outcome, I’m not setting any goals around drafts or word counts or finished projects. I want to write fiction this year. I have a new project in mind that I think might be more enjoyable, a project I want to try, but I’m going into this as an experiment. If I manage to find my joy in writing fiction, it will make me infinitely more likely to finish a book eventually.

Writing fiction ties in with reading fiction as well. I’m on track for leaving my reading slump in the dust, and I want to make sure I continue on the right track in 2024. That means reading a lot and only what I enjoy reading.

Be a little extra this year

Treat yourself. Create a little magic. Revel in the superfluous. Use the stickers.

My third and final goal is a silly one. It’s to be a little extra this year. What I mean by that is closely tied with my word Delight. I want to do the little extra, add the little extra, that will make life extra enjoyable.

Let me take an example. There’s a magazine here in Sweden about writing. It’s not perfect, but definitely has some interesting and inspiring articles. I never buy it. Why? Because I think, well, I won’t read all of it.

And it’s not just a consumption thing. I love making tea in a teapot. I used to do it often, but nowadays almost never. Because it’s a bit of a fuss and I won’t drink all of it.

Well, I want to make the fuss and it doesn’t matter if I won’t read the whole magazine or drink all the tea. I want to do the things that are unnecessary but will add delight and joy to everyday moments. Wear the lipstick, buy the flowers, light the candle, draw the bath, use the sticker.

One little project I have this year is my 2024 planner. It’s a mix between a regular planner and a bullet journal, and I love it.

It’s extremely unnecessary. I will most certainly not make better plans because I add washi tape and stickers to my weekly spread. But oh it’s fun. I’ve been looking forward to using it for weeks. This is the kind of extra I want in my 2024.

I need the light

The evening I made my 2024 mood board, I drew three tarot cards. They were perfect. Together, they represent the three areas I need as I enter 2024.

First, three of cups. A card of fun, joy, friends, creativity and collaborations. To me, it symbolises my focus on delight and joyful processes this year, as well as the creative collaborations of my job and prioritising fun activities with friends.

Secondly, eight of pentacles. A card for honing your craft and fine-tuning skills. This I interpret as as all the writing I will do this year - copywriting at my job, posts here on Substack and figuring out my fiction writing. It’ll very much be a year in the process of writing.

Lastly, the hermit. A card of introspection and inner guidance. It’s my favourite card in this particular deck. For me, it represents the focus on internal feelings in this year’s intentions.

Life isn’t always easy. I know there will be challenges this year. There will be darkness and hard days and difficult things to deal with. I am a silver linings kind of person, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t hard parts to my life.

That’s why I need the light. I feel it so strongly, that I need this delightful, light and soft energy around my creativity. I need it to balance out and conquer the darkness.

I need the art, the beauty, the silly, the frolic, the inspiration, the delight, the wonder, the good, the creativity. It’s my shining light. That’s what I’m turning towards in 2024.

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For my yearly planning, I use my planning guide Four Seasons of Creative Work. If you want to try seasonal planning for 2024, have a look and get it on my website.

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