How to love January

Poor old January. Grey and muddy. Skint and a bit self-loathing. Month of sighs and broken resolve and waistband agony. And so…flipping…long.

Seldom written about, dear old January. Mostly we grit our teeth and robot-walk through it, pretending it isn’t happening.

Some of us will be leaping through the fiery rings of personal re-invention and won’t care what month it is. Woohoo for you. Don’t singe the carpet.

Here's how I’m going to give some love to January.

First principles

January has loads of time in it. I love time.

January is named after a doorway. Who doesn’t love doorways? Especially when you can choose where it goes.

Zhooshing January

Words. They are free and delicious and powerful. Names are the most powerful words of all and secret names are possibly magic. I’m going to give January a secret name.

Work in progress: Plumpuary, Mischieviary, Lexiconuary

I’m also going to give every day a word from my lovely old Roget, like a little lettery kiss.

Dancing. Is significantly better than not dancing and costs not a bean. This shall be my month of dance. A jog or a hop or a wiggle, minimum. Every day. Sillier the better. To old and soon-to-be-found favourite songs. (Singing misheard lyrics badly is optional.)

Weird. Oh gosh, I love it when someone calls me that. Let’s make other people weird too. I’m going to retell any January moments I don’t like as a very short story: magic realist, fantastical surrealist, absurdist, maybe even bizarro (now I’ve looked that up).

Writing. Goes without saying, but might as well while I’m here: writing is lemon-gingery ace. So why don’t I just go ahead and do it more days? (Non-writers switch for knitting, welding, baking, snapping, planting or other favourite making as preferred). Hoorah!

Reading. Nothing but the best for Storyanuary. I’m going to read only works of genius. (Thanks to Mr G).

That lot should put a smile on January’s face. Hope you find a way to make friends with it too. Fingers and toes crossed it’ll love us back.