What to write? Two differing subject matters popping into my head causing confusion – creativity and a new year? Do they fit together. I think perhaps they do.
Yes, there are the obvious best wishes for the coming holiday season, and this is regardless of our personal religion/faith. And there is also a desire to spread goodwill in general as this time of year heralds the idea of a new year coming. Of course, all of us, wherever we are, want things to be better. Consequently, let me begin with that in mind.
Best Wishes to everyone and their families wherever you are. In a very general sense, I hope lives will be lighter next year for all of you as this has been a hard year for everyone for many, many reasons.
However, on a more personal note, I wish everyone the gift of Creativity. You may be thinking this is a strange thing to say and that you would probably prefer chocolates or new underwear. I agree those things would be nice. However, I have good reason to think in terms of creativity and what creativity actually means.
Jenny Hansen
Only recently and I mean recently, October 17, 2025, to be exact, I read a post by Jenny Hansen in Writers in the Storm. I love her down-to-earth approach on everything she writes about. Anyway, the post was entitled Do Stories Save Humanity? and it resonated immediately. I am hoping you will find it an appropriate way to end the old year and begin a new one.
Jenny says:
- Creativity isn’t self-indulgence. It’s self-preservation.
- When the world feels fragmented, stories put us back together.
- When life feels meaningless, stories help reframe it.
- When we can’t speak what we feel, our stories can whisper it for us.
David Foster Wallace
What inspired Jenny to write about this topic? Someone and we don’t know who, sent her a piece from the Free Press on Substack about an author named David Foster Wallace, a most interesting man. In the mid-1990s, David predicted that technology addiction would destroy us and that all that screen time would make people far less connected and far more depressed. Bear in mind, he made this prediction before social media became what it is today. He knew the dangers, thought them obvious. He was correct. And yes, social media is a wondrous thing, and this blog is not about denying that at all. However, the article had a profound effect on Jenny and in reading her article, it impacted on me.
Stories
Like Jenny I also believe our stories can save humanity one word at a time. The emphasis is on our stories. Us. Our stories. The humans that occupy this planet even if we do it so badly at times. It is our communication with each other, the way we are edged into thinking harder, deeper on subjects of all kinds that keeps us evolving. I have doubted myself as a writer so many times and most likely will continue to for a long time to come but my belief that every story we finish makes the world a little less lonely keeps me trying. And every time a character reveals something true, we, the readers, and the creators, are reminded that being human is a story worth living.
I look around and so many are just surviving and doing it alone without the stories of others to cushion the cold. In fact, preventing the stories can justify the choices they make. But I choose to read, to question and to decide what my story should be. If I didn’t read, I doubt I would survive and I want more than to just survive. I have realised I want to be a storyteller, and I want the stories to be real and to make a difference. Can I? Will I? Just like failing forward, my previous post, I can only try.
Writing the stories
Inspired I have added a link to my first two books, with the obvious encouragement to read them. This last year has taken my confidence in many areas, but it is the stories I have listened to that have brought me back into the world of hope for so much more than just selling books.
My books are contemporary romances/family dramas, but they contain so many elements of truth, of possibilities that are about dreams and desires that we can make happen by our behaviours that I believe may make my characters worth meeting.
Their hopes for more in their lives thrust them into the realm of the living because it is only by doing things that we can change things. I wrote these people into life because I truly believe we decide our destinies. And we decide who stands beside us as family and friends and we decide our beliefs by the stories we hear and by further exploration of their truths. Is this the world today? I don’t know anymore but I do know each and every one of us has choices on what and how to think.
This does not negate fantasies for they are the colours in our stories. Most assuredly this does not negate choosing sides and standing by beliefs. What we do need to remember is to look beyond the surface and look for the reality. This is what stories do, what stories bring to our lives. When doubts arise, look for more in the story and think harder, think better.
Sharing the stories
Next year I hope to take some of those characters to a place of celebration because that is what people, families, us humans do that keeps us hopeful for the future. We live our stories. Some of us write those stories. And somehow all of us together creating those stories, reading them, and sharing them create more stories.
Look for the truths in stories filled with love, kindness, truths, or people yearning for them. Embrace that touch of fantasy for palatability because stories of hope, of bravery, of love for humanity will keep us going even when the world is showing us unpleasant pictures. Let hope override the negativity so prevalent today.
Have a wonderful coming season, pray to whatever deity you believe is the right one for you to ease the suffering of those in need. Make the new year one filled with resolutions towards a better world beginning with a desire to become better human beings and pray for a domino effect, the right kind that falls on cushioned floors.
Ci vediamo in 2026
Ciao
Barb
Credit to the following on Unsplash in order of appearance: july-PC9PnA6+-unsplash/dragos-gontariu54VAb3ftzbw-unsplash/maegan-martin-6nsGg31w37c-unsplash/etienne-girardet-EP6_VZhzXM8-unsplash
Amazon Author Page (US) Goodreads Amazon Author Page (Australia)
The Emotions Anthology Box Set
Your stories are definitely worthwhile, Barbara! Keep telling them.
Thank you Linda. Wishing you all the best for the New Year and keep writing those posts. You have such a way of speaking up about things, so clear and able to make strong points. I am in training but hoping to get better as I go along.
Thanks, Barbara, for reading my rantings. Best to you and yours for the holidays and beyond.
Thank you Barb for sharing Jenny’s story. I can’t wait to see what you write about this year!
I can’t wait to see what you cook. LOL