It’s week one of 2026—and here we are once more, slipping into a new year, a new quarter, a new month, a new week. Soon, I’ll ask how the writing is going. But today, let’s all relax into the quiet blankness of this fresh new space. The days will fill themselves in, the weeks will count up, the calendar will flip over without us doing a thing. In fact, no act of ours will slow the hours down. We have 8,760 of them in the year. Try to allow these first hours to unspool quietly and watch them go by without diving into plans and projects.
I bought a new calendar for my office that includes Chinese solar terms, which slice up the seasons according to the equinoxes and solstices. Tomorrow we move from Winter Solstice to Slight Cold. (I love how the almanac pages are like a palimpsest in reverse—not the past showing through but the future. You can just barely see Slight Cold showing through there at the very top right.) On January 20 we will move to Great Cold. And then, on February 4, we get the Start of Spring—and 46 more minutes of daylight in San Francisco than we have today.
After the winter solstice has passed, why do we stop thinking about the darkness and how it might affect us? Today, on January 4, we have the same amount of daylight that we did back on December 7. But yet, on January 1, we are supposed to wake up and go full steam into the new year without the benefit of the light. Let’s agree: We may be done with feasting, but it is still time for resting; planting time is not yet here. (And, for my southern hemisphere folks, I think you can let whatever you planted just grow in the sunshine for a bit on its own!)
I’m writing this for myself as much as for you. By nature, I’m an impatient person and a planner. I did spend time in December evaluating how 2025 went and setting priorities for 2026. But I’m trying to train myself to slow down, leave more blank space, notice what my intuition is asking me to do. Flipping through my journal entries from the past few Januaries, I noticed that I was tired and mildly depressed through all of them. By February I always felt better and had more energy. So I’m going to watch for that Start of Spring marker to show up on my calendar on February 4 and make a proper beginning then.
A new look—and a new platform
You’ll notice that things look a bit different around here. Over the break, I migrated the newsletter from Squarespace to Beehiiv. At the same time, I moved last year’s Novel Study posts from Patreon to Beehiiv as well. Perhaps I’ll say more about the move in a future newsletter (or about what we are doing with names these days—believe me, the spelling of Beehiiv, which gets marks for symmetry and nothing else, figured in my calculations!), but for now all you need to know is that nothing is changing.
You’ll continue to get an email from me every other Sunday focused on writing craft and creativity, with reflections on my own writing and reading life. I have a few more Novel Study posts planned in the coming months, catching up on posts I didn’t get to last year, and I’ll link to those in the newsletter when they are ready. If you want to read or revisit the series, you can find them all at newsletter.thebluegarret.com. You can also now buy access to the Novel Study Vault, a collection of my story spreadsheets and craft notes for five recent bestselling novels. (Paid Patreon members, you should have received an email with a free coupon code to the vault—drop me a line if you didn’t get it!)
The Novel Study Vault
Story spreadsheets and detailed craft notes for bestselling novels — tools to help you see how successful fiction really works.
I’d love to know what you think about the redesign of the newsletter and the Novel Study posts, both good and bad. This is a work in progress, and I’m still tweaking and adding. Reply to this message to let me know your thoughts about the design, or to tell me what you’ve been reading and writing—hearing from readers helps me tailor this newsletter to your needs!
Creative support for the new year
If you want more creative support as we tiptoe into 2026, I have two programs to recommend:
Cynthia Morris’s Write On program runs from January 12 through April 17: Cynthia is one of the warmest, wisest coaches out there, and her advice is based on experience—she self-published her most recent novel, Lisbon Colors, in 2025.
Jocelyn K. Glei’s Kiln program runs from February 10 through April 14: If you responded to what I said above about intuition and seasonality, this could be a great fit for you. Jocelyn is very skilled at gathering together creative folks from all kinds of fields, and you’ll be in good company.
Of course, we’ll end with a Thing of Joy—there is always one to be found amidst the horrors of the news cycle. I spent a lot of time reading and not much time scrolling or watching during the last few weeks (hooray!), but I did enjoy this YouTube video about San Francisco bar pilots, which stars well-trained people doing a difficult job they clearly love. Plus, glamor shots of my gorgeous San Francisco Bay.
Stay well, y’all, and keep fighting the good fights.
Kristen