I postmortem each month shortly after it ends. Previously, I used these posts to hold myself accountable on progress toward my annual goals. Starting in January 2023, I broadened these posts to address more generally my observations and experiences for the month. (To read previous months’ reviews, click here.)

Never a good thing to go into writing an overview of the past month from deep in the doldrums, but all I can figure is that maybe many of you out there reading this will at least know how that goes.

I’ll get over it, I always do, but so much in this world feels so pervasively heavy right now that even my attempts to cut down on my exposure to it all have limited efficacy. Doesn’t help that I’m struggling with different projects underway and my overall sense of self-worth and the small wins I’ve marked here and there to shore up the walls against frustration and exhaustion and sadness didn’t shore them up quite enough for all these storms we’re having.

I can’t even blame the season for the mood. Even if it were July, everything would feel dark.

So. January.

I made it through some final steps to call the work I’d done on one new novel a first draft, which I’ve since put aside so that I can look at it with fresh eyes after a week or two. I already feel the anxiety mounting over all the problems I know it has and all the revision work I know it will need.

While it rests, I’ve tried to clear it from the forefront of my mind through fleshing out another novel idea that I started to percolate shortly before this resting period began. I need two projects underway at a time to ensure that I can keep moving forward with my writing while letting each project get the space it needs to breathe before I dig into it again. My novel-planning work will continue into early February, after which I’ll shift back to turning that first draft of the novel currently resting into a second draft.

At least the frustration of fleshing out a novel idea and feeling completely useless when it comes to innovation won’t lull me into feeling so comfortable that I can’t bear to dig into the painful work of first-draft-to-second-draft revisions.

Spending time with friends in January soothed the spirits. As did going to a reading and conversation with the author Rachel Kushner and to the MCBA here in Lausanne to see their latest exhibits and visit their permanent collection again. It has also helped that we didn’t have a bunch of travel yanking us around geographically. As nice as it is to see new places, I find it hard to take in and enjoy too many new places in too short a time period, and frequent travel means that, when I am home, all I have time to do is play catch up with life and work and have limited time to relax and enjoy the people and places where I live.

As I write this, February has already arrived and it brings its own adventures. May I find a way to shore up the morale to tackle them with aplomb and some possibility for success. May we all.