It’s here! In these early days of January 2015 we get to open a pristine clean notebook, figuratively speaking, and enjoy the empty lines and blank pages. How the spine is unbroken, and the edges of the pages are not yet turned up. There is something about the unlimited possibility that it holds. You can contemplate that wide-open space ahead, and potential stretching out across the coming months.
Maybe you’ll fill this ‘notebook’ with the best ideas you’ve ever had. You might learn something about yourself that you didn’t know – perhaps discover that your spine and heart are stronger than you think, and your notebook will say so. You might record some extraordinary milestones, and moments created in amazing places, or with people who will change your life in ways big and small.
Most notebooks though, end up containing the everyday of our lives: ideas, lists, appointments, recipes, and snippets of a thought or a dream. And the little moments with the people you care about. It turns out that the everyday, in it’s simplicity, routine, and its rise and fall, is the real joy of life.
A New Year is by definition, according to the Oxford Dictionary: the calendar year just begun or about to begin. Like the stories we are taught to write at primary school, the calendar year gives us a beginning, middle, and an end. The months and days give our lives structure and memory. We can mark time and measure our lives by the dates and times. In other words, a frame to hang your moments upon: the extraordinary, and the quiet and not-so-quiet everyday. And a pause at the end to farewell a collection of memories, and welcome a new one.
We’d love to share in your year – it might be a milestone for you, submitting your first story to Headland, possibly seeing your story published. It might be downloading our issues as they come out. It might be a quiet moment reading a Headland story while you wait for your coffee or the bus, that lingers long after. You might chat to us on Facebook or Twitter about your reading and writing, and keep up with our news. As you think about you’d like to read and write in 2015, keep us in mind.
We have some heart and mind-expanding, enjoyable reading coming your way. We will be launching our first issue of Headland in less than a month (stay tuned!), and we are currently calling for submissions for our April issue. If you’d like to submit your story for consideration you’ve got until 20 February. We’d love to hear from you, readers, and writers, all.
Happy New Year, and happy writing and reading to you. We hope you enjoy your brand new notebook. Here’s to making new moments and memories.
