What's Your Word for 2015?

Whilst skating about various social media sites, I’ve encountered more than one person discussing their ‘word of the year’: A word which encapsulates their goals for the upcoming twelve months. I liked this idea and so I boldly took the next step: choosing a word.

But which word to choose? First, I thought ‘Let’s dream big’ and I chose success. Then I thought, ‘But that could simply mean getting through the day without killing anyone (literally - remember, I write murder mystery games so there’s usually a hypothetical body on the floor somewhere). Or it could mean I successfully ate the last cookies in the jar. Or ‘Hurrah, you found a different recipe for dinner instead of the old tried and true six recipes you usually employ.’

 Digression: I have a bookshelf of cookbooks and am addicted to adding to my collection. I use three of them - and of those three, I use them for very specific dishes. For example, I would never consider looking for a brownie recipe (digression in the digression - oooooo…brownies…) in any other of my cookbooks than the one I’ve used for decades. Yes, of course there are brownie recipes in other books and yes, I’ve clipped them from magazines. Do I use them? No.

Sorry. I’ll refocus.

‘But,’ I thought, ‘success could also mean what you want it to mean...success at writing. And success on your terms (which I admit are fairly lofty - but that’s another blog post). What could be wrong with aiming for that? Nothing, of course. It’s good. Why, some might even say it’s admirable.

'So there,' I thought. 'There’s my word. Success.'

'No,' came a whisper. 'Your word needs to be completion. You have five projects on the go with none complete. There’s no success without finishing.'

The brutal truth. Success.

And that’s my word: completion. By this time next year I WILL have those five projects completed. Maybe even published.

But those cookies in the jar? Consider them completed. Totally.

What is your word for the next year?

Elspeth Futcher is an author and playwright. Her murder mystery games A Fatal Fairy Tale, Deadly Ever After and Curiouser and Curiouser are among the top-selling mystery games on the Internet. All thirteen of her murder mystery games and two audience-interactive plays are published by host-party.com. Her newest game, Once Upon a Murder, is now available and published by Red Herring Games. Her 'writing sheep' are a continuing feature in the European writers' magazine Elias. Connect with her on Twitter at @elspethwrites or on Facebook at Elspeth Futcher, Author.