Photo credit: Todd Petrie.

I’m staring at a wall in my office, trying to figure out what I want to write today, but my creative mind is far away, frolicking in the fictional world of River’s Sigh B & B—a romance series I’m working on (Book 1, Wedding Bands).

It’s not that I don’t have things to say; I just can’t access them. I’m preoccupied with Jo and Callum and what will become of them. They live in a made up northern BC town called Greenridge that’s loosely based on Terrace, and right now their time of year mimics ours. But unlike me, they don’t just want to crawl back to bed and—well, maybe they do. Heh. I told you. I’m preoccupied.

The smell of fresh ground, just brewed coffee is doing its trick though. I mean I have a word document open and everything. The house is warm and cozy, still holding heat, I think, from recent sun but I can’t fool myself. Summer is officially done.

Outside the rain is falling so hard that it looks (and sounds!) like it’s not raining at all—more like some prankster’s throwing buckets of water at my window (but my husband’s at work).

It’s not just the pull of a new novel that’s distracting me, though. It used to be that school, for myself, then for my children, lent focus and structure to the burst of energy and angst that seems to accompany fall weather. September always felt like the true start of a new year. December 31^st and January 1^st were just great excuses to eat rich foods and have a lot of fun. Autumn was the time for making decisions and plans, starting new habits, revisiting goals.

Yet here I am, as I already fessed up, staring at my wall . . . in September. In my defense, at least it’s an interesting wall, with more than one inspirational quote in big bright-colored circles, posters, and a speech bubble. My business licence perches there, along with several sticky notes that say encouraging things like “Take every opportunity!” as well as cryptic things like “Next #MSWL day is September 24.” There’s a postcard from my sister (“Sometimes your only available transportation is a leap of faith” ~ Margaret Shepherd), a piece of a calendar that I pulled off and taped up (“Be not afraid of moving slowly. Be afraid of standing still.”), a year-at-a-glance calendar, a list of “official” writing and work goals for 2014 (some of which I’m actually achieving, ha ha), and a bunch of other random bits of this and that.

And I’m wondering about the relevance of my wall to my disjointed thoughts and uneasiness regarding a September that’s not full of plans and changes—and suddenly I know what it is. My wall says it all; I crave written out schedules, designated times for assigned tasks, and the fresh start and renewed perspective you get looking ahead from one month, considering the next ten.

My association with September as being the start of the year hasn’t been broken, despite how long it’s been since I was a student or teacher, and regardless of the fact that my children have graduated. And now I know the remedy for the meh and indecision that ails me. New school supplies. Yes, seriously. How can a year commence or continue without fresh pencils and a new Mead 5-Star? Answer: it cannot. And modifications to my year-at-a-glance calendar. I need to revisit my goals and plans for the next ten months now; I can’t wait until January. Happy New Year!

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“Happy New Year!” by me, Ev Bishop, was originally published in the Terrace Standard, September 24, 2014 as my monthly column “Just a Thought.”