Spent 4+ consecutive hours working on my WIP this afternoon and I feel AMAZING

Haunted heritage blueberry farm romance, aka one of my 2026 WIPs

Your daily fortune: Be like a tree in Winter. Drop all pretenses of growth and go dormant until the distant return of Spring.

Instead of stepping out of my comfort zone, I think I might step into an even comfier one. Fluffy bathrobe and mashed potatoes in bed sort of comfy.

Of all the gifts you received, the best and most inexplicable is the two-shelf bookcase that appeared in the snow out back after sundown. Rough-grained and heavy, it somehow keeps making room for your many (many) books, and twice now you’ve found a volume you’re certain you never owned.

The sizzle of a slow-fire-roasted goose fills your home with a smell so intoxicating it nearly makes you dizzy. Friends arrive with a song, bringing covered dishes of sage stuffing, brown sugar carrots, crusty bread. You pour glass after glass of fizzing honey mead, surrounded by laughter and thanks

Merry Christmas, Canada.

This Pope slaps

Gentle reminder that it's okay to go for a little walk, or a nap, and take a break from your family, even though you love them. It's easy to get overstimulated, or tired out from managing your emotions (and maybe theirs) around differing philosophies that come out when you all get together. 🍵🌱

Today is a good day to put out an extra plate or two, and hold the door open a moment longer when guests arrive, to welcome the ghosts of old friends.

Later, we shall walk the same path through the boneyard to midnight mass. It shall be more ghost-crowded then, for in death many seem to remember the ritual of life and walk beside us. Each year adds to the roll of phantoms. – #CLNolan in a letter to #ArthurMachen, 1929

Father Christmas rarely braves this part of the woods, but you leave out honeyed cream and squares of homemade brownies for the troupe of acorn-booted small folk who often come in his stead. Last year they broke your gate, but filled your pantry with cheeses. A worthwhile trade, in your opinion.

Simply, that there be more moments of good than of bad. More shared meals, more acts of kindness and compassion, more colour, more blooms. You tell your neighbour about the single, early snowdrop you found today, the buds on the apple branch, and you lean into each other, feeling the hope of it all

Back in the graveyard before Christmas, another mini-mushroom, Moss Navel (Arrhenia rickenii), hiding amongst the moss on a tombstone. If you don't seek, you don't find. #fungifriends #fungi #mycology

You leave out a stack of scrap paper and a handful of stubby pencils and declare loudly to your cottage that you're leaving to go shopping for the day. When you return, there are words and paper and tiny sooty footprints scattered all over your floor, asking for “kreem" and "huny" and "choklit."

I like that mistletoe increases the odds of being kissed. More plants should offer temporary environmental status. Brawling under lingonberries. The soft yearning of a love that dare not speak its name beneath the nightshade.

Be sure to leave out some cranberries in the old barn for the Peppermint Man.

You hurry to your garden fountain as the first rays of sun appear to see what fortune awaits you in the coming year. Underneath the surface, the ice has twisted itself into the images of an acorn, a bridge, and a long-winged bird in flight - health, a journey and good luck.

a skeleton swallowing a key wind chime #haiku #DailyHaikuPrompt

This is GORGEOUS! (Also saving it for mood board inspiration for when I start writing my gender-swapped Holly/Oak enemies-lovers-enemies novella next year)

Tamsin Abbot, contemporary English stained glass artist #WomensArt #Solstice #Midwinter

On the shortest day, have cheer - the light will return! This photo was given to me a few days ago by my friend Clare Nettleton. It shows winter sun lighting up the window I made for Grace’s Room, at Williton Hospital, Somerset. It is of Exmoor …

Wishing everyone a warm and wonderful solstice ❤️✨ even in the darkest hours, there is still life and light and new growth, even if it’s subtle and small

my name is cow and wen its nite and when a star is shiyning brite and three wise men give me the nod i walk up close I lik the God

So if you need to cry at 6am on the solstice, this story has you covered

On the longest night of the year, you creep out into your garden for the darkest hour and feel the weight of night on your skin. You whisper your wishes and hopes for the next year across the frozen surface of the fountain, where they curl and freeze like tiny sculptures.

I think that when one’s life suddenly resembles something one would like to read in a book it is good to recognize it, & mark the gratitude, the better to remember a beautiful thing

Merriam quits the high-stakes world of lexicography to teach at a college in Springfield, MA…where Webster just became the head librarian. She shows him that ‘love’ isn’t that hard to find…if you know where to look it up. “A Merriam Little Christmas 2: Collegiate Edition.”

first light and soft frost the small green weeds of winter waking up alone

Doing a sample edit for a prospective client this morning, and I’ve already commented “LOVE THIS” half a dozen times. This story feels like an early Christmas present 😊

“We need to be tolerant and nuanced about this invasion of our living spaces by fleas, ticks, lice, cockroaches & mosquitoes!” Yeah, no.

important

The scent of frost and cinnamon lingers on your pillow as you awake alone, bits of greenery tangled in your hair and scattered across the blanket. On your finger, a twisting ring of bark, smooth as butter inside and cool, despite your warm skin.

Writing these daily micros for the last two months has been so creatively stimulating and I plan to continue into the new year, but an unexpected side effect is the quiet swelling of my “books I want to write” list. New Year’s resolution is to triage which world gets written first 😅

Hoofbeats thunder toward your cottage, the sole rider a woman with green in her sharp cheekbones and her wind-tangled wild hair. You stand, holding your door wide, electric with anticipation. As she steps across your threshold, her cheeks flush apple-red, hunger in her eyes and a grin on her lips.

In my control: finish my angsty, cottagegore sapphic romantasy and get it ready to go on sub. Outline and write some chapters for a haunted blueberry farm romance with a judgy and passive aggressive poltergeist. Out of my control: find a home for my choose your own adventure dark fairytale.

Some species will even be as generous as to grow directly into your skin - if you present them with an appropriate offering of stone stories - providing a wind- and weather-proof permanent cloak of warmth.

You craft a star from fallen twigs and wind it with golden thread, then tie it to the top of your tree. Tiny, iridescent spiders - brilliant as gems - creep out from the branches to spin and spin, draping the star in shimmering silver and sparkling frost.

What in the small press poetry collection title headline

babe go back to bed it’s sleepy girl winter. time to hibernate

Hemingway’s editor: The short story you sent is great, but I’d like to see you flesh it out. Who is this baby— and why doesn’t he wear shoes?

You haul out bales of grasses and straw from the drying shed and stack them against the outside of your cottage, lashing them to the wood to keep the clawing cold out. The resident crows help, bringing you lengths of found twine and rope in exchange for making their winter homes under your eaves.

At last the foxes arrive. Two dozen of them, the ruddy-gold ones from the East, and those with ink-black faces from the West. They surround you in a chorus of excited yips and pull you down into the snow with sharp teeth. When you rise, it’s on four legs, aching with joy, ready to run with them.

The literal evil of most platforms aside, the time sink aspect is a huge sticking point for me. Between my kids, my work, my aging parents and ✨Life✨ in general, my writing hours are limited, and if I’m making “content” then I’m not writing books.

How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

The witch may walk the wood intending to brood, but she will often learn that the wood has other ideas for her. – #EmilyCBanting, 1982 #Dawn

Merriam-Webster’s human editors have chosen ‘slop’ as the 2025 Word of the Year.

The day dawns in a gentle snowfall, flakes as small as eyelashes, so you gather your midwinter gifts and spend the day delivering them. Brandy cakes to the family of hobs in your garden, crocheted stars to hang on the Birchling dryad, and a dripping wet haunch for the black beast deep in the woods.

To anyone who claims this one is "too silly" and "could not really exist in a spoken language" in German you can say "it is sausage to me" to mean you don't care about something never say my expressions are impossible again.

Annual rewatch of The Muppet Christmas Carol and reminder that Fred is both a style icon and the man of my dreams.