The Parlor Write-in at 34 Orchard was successful last night (and this was after, yes, I spent an hour pulling together the email lists for future mailings! Go me!). We all got a lot of work done. I got work done, too, but not the work I was supposed to be doing, which was working on my new short story. Instead, I wasted it on some administrative things for 34 Orchard: paying on a contract, sending out a different contract, cleaning out and organizing the Inbox in preparation for our January 1 call.

I don’t know. Maybe that is good news. I feel great about what I accomplished in preparing 34 Orchard for 2026. There’s still so much to do, though, and January approaches.

One of our write-in participants edits for a quarterly, and she noted that she loves that because it’s only blocks of time during the year that she focuses on that. It was a nice reminder: that was what 34O was supposed to be; I was only supposed to work on it, when I founded it way back in 2020, January – April and then July – September, leaving me months in which I was free to do other things. But it didn’t work out that way, and that’s simply because I started working ahead even as I would get behind (a quarter if you can figure out what that actually means!), or maybe it’s just that I use 34O as an excuse not to write. One of my 2026 goals is to get 34O caught up, where it needs to be, and back in balance. It honestly is one of my greatest joys in life. Every time I think it’s just too much, I get an email or message from someone I’ve published or sent a contract to or sent edits to, telling me what a great experience they’re having working with us, and that’s why I do it. It’s not the kudos. It’s just knowing that in this noisy world of so much internet and busy and so much to read and watch, somebody, somewhere, is getting something out of what I’m doing. My dad always said ‘if you reach one person, you’ve done your job, you just probably will never hear about it.’ So whatever 34O is, becomes, or dies as, I did my job—and I was lucky enough to hear about it.

I did, in fact, start the new short story yesterday! I can’t tell you the title or what it’s about—I’m so excited about it, and the second I start talking about the specifics of a project, some of that energy gets let out. Like air out of a can of Tab when you pop it open: the bubbles are still there, but the big noisy burst of ‘wow, I can’t wait!’ has dissipated, and you can’t get that back. So I’ll shut up on that for now. But…

I did get pretty far into the opening yesterday—which for me is just a lot of garbage. When I start writing a story, it’s just a full-on tarn of creative vomit (my favorite part of writing is revision; it’s carving a story out of all of that word barf, like a sculptor carves from clay). This morning I did even more, and I got a loose outline. I’m working toward hopefully submitting it for this call (here’s the link, if you’re a writer and you’re interested; deadline is January 15: https://horrificscribblings.com/submissions/submissions-challenge/). We’ll see what happens. Sometimes I still can get all the way through a story and then change my mind, or more than likely, it’s not perfect enough by the time of the deadline, so I let it pass and end up earmarking the story for a future collection or sending it out to other publications to see if it’ll get picked up.

In between yesterday there was more clean-up of my home, which is a post-construction and post-too-much-stuff and post-Krissi’s-had-MCAS for a decade mess. More on that another time, but suffice it to say, I did a lot around the house yesterday, baby step things, and some Christmas things. Have you ever seen the film Surviving Christmas with James Gandolfini (I think this may have been his last movie, actually), Catherine O’Hara and Ben Affleck? If you haven’t, I recommend it. The chemistry is fabulous, and there are parts that are actually funny. It always makes me cry (one of those good cries, like a this-is-so-touching cries). It’s got a great score, too, one I own to write to. It always reminds me what Christmas is really about, so who cares if the house is a disaster. Clean up one or two rooms and make them nice to hang out in, next.

My good friend Michele reminded me that I need to give myself grace—strangely, it’s only in the past couple of days that I understand now what that means.

One of my favorite holidays is New Year’s. In the past, it was always because there was an awesome party, and an awesome day after, hanging out in our PJs, spending the whole day on the couch. But in the past decade, it’s also become magical in a different way: for me, it’s a fresh, new start. A while ago—I don’t know how many years ago, now—I started a tradition in which I made a wish for each person who came to my party. I would make up tags that read, “May [YEAR] bring you [JOY, PEACE, LOVE, ADVENTURE… you get the idea].” Then I’d tape them shut and tie each on one of those Christmas crackers. The crackers would go in a bowl (the original plan was to hang them on my Christmas tree that had been stripped of ornaments already, but that didn’t work), and just before midnight, each guest would choose one at random.

It was supposed to be just a one-off—a way that year to give a unique party favor that didn’t cost much money—but each person kept the wish tag, and to my surprise, I discovered throughout the year that whatever wish they’d gotten had come to pass.

In 2017—the year I first got hit with MCAS (no doctor knew what it was and I’ve had to figure it out on my own, but that’s a story for another time)—my popper tag wish was GRACE. I thought I knew what that meant: people would give me grace or be nice to me. Or something. But over the years I knew that wasn’t right. I now understand that what it meant was that I needed to give myself grace and heal instead of trying to push through like I did. I might’ve saved myself a lot of grief.

Well, anyway. That’s the past. I already worked on the story today, I’m eating my breakfast, and I’m putting together a box of cookies to take to some folks who really helped me out this year. No, I didn’t bake them. I went down to Stew Leonard’s bakery section and chose some of their delicious, soft, ginger molasses cookies, some chocolate chip cookies, and gourmet chocolate-covered pretzels (ten for $16 gave me a heart attack, but… they’re pretty, and if I could eat them I’m sure they’d be delicious!). I’ll finish it with sprinkles of Hershey’s kisses and York peppermint patties. Then it’s my housemate’s birthday, and I need to get the dining room a little tidier and possibly even festive so we can do dinner and cake and presents. It’s the thought that counts.

Grace, Krissi. Grace.