Tag Archive for: Word of the Year

Word of the Year 2018! (And the Good News Jar of 2017)

January 1, 2018/1 Comment/in Writing/by AJ Cattapan

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Welcome to 2018! I hope this year will be one of many blessings for all of you.

As I’ve done for the last five years, I picked a “word of the year,” a word to give this year some focus. When I started in 2013, I chose the word optimism. I chose that word to shake off the negative feelings I’d had toward my writing career–and lo and behold–I ended up with my first Chicken Soup for the Soul book that year and my first book contract the next year.

In 2014, the word was trust–as in trusting in God’s plan.

In 2015, the word was grace. This was the year my mother ended up passing away. As she was passing, one of my sisters-in-law said, “Gee, your mother even dies gracefully.” May I ever strive to live as gracefully as she did.

In 2016, the word was mercy. Pope Francis had declared it the Year of Mercy, so why not?

Although I never blogged about it, my word of the year for 2017 was balance. I think I quickly lost sight of that word.

This year, I decided to do something a little bit different and let fate (or perhaps it was really Jennifer Fulwiler) chose my word. Every year Jen create a “saint of the year” generator to help her fans pick a patron saint of the year. This year, I got St. Lucy.

She seems like a good fit since she was Italian and is a patron saint of writers. I’m also glad to hear she’s “against dysentery,” because who wants that! 🙂

Then Jen decided to create a word of the year generator. Since I had yet to come up with my own new word of the year, I decided to give it a whirl. Some people kept hitting the button until they came up with a word they liked, but I decided to go with the first word I got . . . and that word was . . .

According to my friend Merriam-Webster, “untangle” means “to loose from tangles or entanglement: straighten out,” and the examples MW gave are “untangle a knot; untangle a mystery.”

With work, my doctorate program, multiple circles of friends, writing groups, family, church events, Order of Malta work, writing projects, and speaking events, it certainly seems like my life has plenty of “threads,” each deserving of its own time and attention, but how to untangle them all? How to make sense of where and how to pay attention to each thread?

So that is my word of the year. In 2018, I will try to untangle any knots in my many threads. Who knows, I may even untangle the mystery of how to develop the plot for the sequel to Seven Riddles to Nowhere.

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Some of you may also recall that I keep a Good News Jar every year. In this jar, I periodically drop in a slip of paper on which I have written some good news. While many good things happened during 2017, I only managed to get 15 pieces of good news into the jar this year. I think my friend Carmela Martino had far more in hers. We’ll see what happens in 2018!

My Word-of-the-Year and a new “Good News” Jar

January 2, 2016/4 Comments/in Writing/by AJ Cattapan

If you’ve been around the blog for a few years, you may have seen my previous posts about picking a word of the year. Instead of making a list of new year’s resolutions, I choose one word to focus on. Whenever I feel like I’m losing my way or need a little guidance, I think of that word and it brings me back into focus.

My first year, I picked the word optimism. I wanted to shake off the negative feelings I’d had toward my writing career and think positively. I think it helped a little because 2013 was the year my first Chicken Soup for the Soul piece was printed, and then at the very end of the year, I decided to give my young adult novel Angelhood one last try.

For 2014 my word was trust. I had just finished revisions to Angelhood and decided to submit it to one last publisher at the start of the year. I was going to trust that whatever God had planned for it would work out fine. Well, a few months later, I got the acceptance email from Vinspire. I also worked a lot at trusting God about getting me to Italy that year, and in fact, He got me there not once but twice, but that’s a whole other story!

For 2015, I picked the word grace. I knew many things were going to happen in 2015 that would incur a lot of stress and require a lot of grace from me. My book launched, and I had to keep reminding myself to handle all the new-found attention with grace. How do you promote your book but not come across as obnoxious about it? I prayed for lots of grace, and I hope I succeeded. Then my mother passed away, and I started a doctorate program while still teaching full time. Lots more grace needed. My mom had lots of grace. I hope I inherited a little from her.

For 2016, I have chosen the word mercy. Yes, I was inspired by Pope Francis declaring this the year of mercy, but I think it will be good for many reasons. It will remind me to perform works of mercy toward others, but also to have mercy with myself. With trying to juggle teaching, a doctorate program, and writing, I tend to beat myself for not doing more. Can you believe it? I feel like I’m not using my time wisely enough. I should spend less time on social media. More time writing. Less time fretting over my own homework. More time being with people. I need to give myself a break. Yes, mercy toward others, but also mercy toward myself when my perfectionist tendencies start to rear their ugly heads again.

Now as for the “Good News” jar . . . if you haven’t heard of it, it’s simply an empty jar that you use to collect your “good news” throughout the year. It can also be called a Blessings Jar.

All you have to do is write down something good you heard about or that happened to you that day and put it in the jar. Last year, I started off doing a great job with this, but after my mom fell and my book came out, I started to ignore the jar. A few times I thought of something good to write down, but then I realized I hadn’t cut up any more slips of paper to write on and I’d be too tired, so I’d just forget about it.

So this year, I’m pre-cutting lots of slips of paper! Bring on the good news in 2016!

Word of the Year 2015 and Good News Jar

January 6, 2015/9 Comments/in Spin Cycle, Writing/by AJ Cattapan

For the past two years, I’ve picked a “word of the year” instead of making New Year’s resolutions. Last year, I picked the word trust, as in I was going to trust in God’s plan. Since my plans never seem to work out like I think they should, I figure I might as well give it up and just, in the famous words of Elsa, “let it go.” Amazingly, at the time I decided on that word, I hadn’t even seen Frozen yet.

So what word should I pick for 2015? The word trust worked out pretty well for 2014. I trusted in God’s plan and look what happened:

I got my first book contract.
I was picked to go on a pilgrimage to Italy for the Canonization Mass for John Paul II and John XXIII in April
I went back to Rome in July to “speak, pray, and cook” like an Italian.
I started my preparation to become a Dame of the Order of Malta.

2015 is shaping up to be no less of a roller coaster ride. Of course, I’ve learned that these plans might not go as I expect, but things God might have in store for me this year include the following:

my first speaking gig as an author (I’ll be speaking to the young adult crowd at St. Emily in Mt. Prospect on Wednesday, January 21, from 7-9 p.m. about finding your God-given creativity. If you live near Chicago and are in your 20s or 30s, come on out!)
a trip to Guatemala for spring break (Shall I blog about it? I’m thinking of calling it the Gotta Guatemala Tour.)
the release of my debut novel Angelhood on April 30 (stay tuned for details about launch parties!)
perhaps a return trip to Italy in the summer to study more Italian???
the start of my doctoral program in September??? (still waiting to be officially accepted into the program)
my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary in October
being invested as a Dame in the Order of Malta by Cardinal Dolan in New York in November

So . . . yeah . . . lots of potential for this year. What kind of word would help me survive all this? I’ve considered words like “Charge!” as well as cheating by using full phrases like “Full speed ahead” and “Bring it on!” I was almost convinced my word of the year was going to be “roll.” As in, whatever happens, I’m just going to “roll” with it.

But just now, at the last minute, I’ve decided to change my mind. The year of the word for 2015 for me will be grace. In my book Angelhood, there’s a lot of talk about grace. It’s something my main character is sorely missing in the beginning, and yet something she’ll need if she’s going to grow the wings she needs to get into heaven. Grace is something my spiritual director keeps bringing up, too. For example, when faced with a tough situation, she encourages me to think about how I can “stand in grace” in that moment. I’ll admit I’ve struggled with this a lot. To begin with, despite using the word grace repeatedly in my book, I still feel like I don’t totally have a handle on what the word means, so I’ve turned to my trusty friend Merriam-Webster to see what he was to say about the word.

According to him, grace is . . .

a way of moving that is smooth and attractive and that is not stiff or awkward
a controlled, polite, and pleasant way of behaving
unmerited divine assistance given humans for their regeneration or sanctification
a virtue coming from God

And all of those kind of sum up how I hope to get through all the ups and downs I’m sure 2015 will bring. May I speak in a way that is smooth, attractive, and not stiff or awkward! May I be polite and pleasant to all I meet! And may God grant me His divine assistance through it all!

Now in addition to picking a word of the year, there’s one other thing I’ve done for the last two years, and that’s keep a Good News Jar.

A Good News Jar is simply an empty jar in which you keep slips of paper on which you write down all the good news you get, so that at the end of the year, you can open the jar and remember all the wonderful things that happened in the previous year.

You would think an entry like this would earn an exclamation point or a smiley face. I think I was still in shock by the news to add anything other than the basic fact I’d been offered a book contract!

As with the first year, I started off really strong with 16 entries in January, but then added only 10 more over the course of the rest of the year. Hmm. Still it was fun to look back over the slips of paper and recall some of the crazy things from the beginning of last year, like when I got a flat-tire during the polar vortex and was just grateful that I hadn’t been far from home when it happened!

So I’ll try again this year, and we’ll see how many pieces of good news I can accumulate in 2015! And hopefully, I’ll accept all this good news with grace.

Interested in learning about other “Words of the Year” authors and bloggers have picked? Check out the Spin Cycle by clicking on the link below.

Tag Archive for: Word of the Year

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