Writers' Pantry #51: Year's End

 Greetings, dear wordsmiths – in fact, Season’s Greetings!

Yes, it’s holiday time. This will be our last post for this year. Magaly will usher in our New Year with a new Weekly Scribblings on Wednesday January 6th – after a pause of two-and-a-half weeks when we can focus on festivities, or a good rest, or both. And if you can’t stop writing, don’t worry – save up the results to share with us next year.

Personally I'm planning a solitary Summer Solstice celebration, as at present I need rest more than circle dancing  – though I'll send the local Goddess gathering some light, of course. Nor will I be visiting family interstate for Christmas this year (except by video). Our State borders are not long open; and, at the time of writing this, some may need to close again. In any case I'm still wary of long journeys on public transport. Instead I intend some gloriously lazy self-indulgence right here. For one thing, I have a number of Mary Oliver books to re-read; one of my greatest pleasures. And it might be time to watch Breakfast at Tiffany's again – a movie I can see over and over (and have) while loving it just as much every time.  What will you be up to?

Hands up who’s glad to see the end of 2020! Hmmm, yes, that seems to be unanimous – at least in terms of large-scale things such as firestorms, pandemics, economic downturns, and volatile political events.  Whew!

On a smaller scale, some things haven’t been so bad – in this community, for instance. Our transition from the old format to Poets and Storytellers United, with an almost-new management team and of necessity a new blog, has turned out very well all things considered. Or so your remaining staff of three feel. We’ve settled down to a smooth and easy operation behind the scenes, with much accord, some laughter, perfect trust, and a lovely lack of drama.

Although it appears that Blogger is still doing some updating, I’m glad to say the glitches are not nearly so dramatic as they were a year ago. We can usually correct them before you even see them. I’m grateful for Magaly and Rommy’s technical expertise and their willingness to make it available to me.

Of course we'd be nothing without our lovely community of willing participants! You're  the point of it all. We thank you for playing along with the ideas we dream up, and keeping it fun and interesting.

For this final post of the year, feel free to link any piece of writing you care to, old or new, poetry or prose, just one each, and please keep prose to an upper limit of 369 words. The prompt will stay open for a week.

On the first Weekly Scribblings of the new year (Jan 6 2021), Magaly will invite us to revisit our Weekly Scribblings selection, and write new poetry or prose using one of our 2020 prompts. Please add the title (and link, if you can) of your chosen prompt to your post. Don’t feel like searching? No problem. Here are some choices: 1) Weekly Scribblings #40: Walking Away, 2) Weekly Scribblings #25: Well, That Was Unexpected, 3) Weekly Scribblings #9: Contagion.

And in conclusion, here's a little gift to writers (particularly storytellers, but I’m sure poets will enjoy it too) which I found while roving the web recently: 

9 Lines of Writing Advice with Cats 

– from Robert Lee Brewer at Writer's Digest. (Once there, keep scrolling down.)

Happy holidays! Stay safe and well!

(Parcel image from Unsplash, by Kira auf der Heide.)