2026 Writing Project

Essay A

She opened up yet another crisp notebook, uncapped her new Lamy fountain pen, and wrote with a flourish: “Write more”.

The W had a satisfying grandeur to it that made her feel like this time she’d do a better job of sticking with her resolution. Since she first caught the “new year’s resolution” bug in her early 20s, she’d had a litany of catchy statements born each December that lay abandoned by Mar the next year, May if lucky.

Learn a new dance. Read more. Learn a new language. Learn to love cooking. Read more news. Get fit. Spend less. Invest more. Write more. Be more active. 

More. More. More.

Every year, she got asked by some skeptic in her circle: “Why do you even make these? I’ve never seen you stick to any of your previous ones.” 

They were right. She could admit to never having successfully executed any of them to perfection. 

She smiled as she wrote out her next resolution: “Get strong” with a marvelously long loop on the “g”.

Perfection was never the point. Regularly nudging herself out of the inertia of life was.

Essay B

The desk was a theater of possibility. She uncapped her Lamy fountain pen, the brushed steel cool against her palm. She smoothed the notebook’s first page – a cream-colored expanse of satisfying grandeur – and began to write, the nib moving in a marvelously long loop.

Then, the ghosts arrived. Her history was a litany of abandoned selves:

• Fitness: The 5:00 AM runs that lasted six days.
• Hobbies: The watercolor set with only two pans of used blue.
• Finances: The budget spreadsheet last touched in 2022.

The internal critique was sharp. Why bother? it asked. The culture of self-improvement demanded More. More. More. It suggested a goal unreached was a debt unpaid.

But she felt a wistful warmth instead of shame. The yoga mat had taught her she preferred hiking; the sourdough had been a lesson in patience. Each “failure” was a spark, not a tombstone. The ritual wasn’t about who she would be by December, but the fact that she still wanted to grow. She wasn’t signing a contract; she was staging a revolution against her own stagnation.

Perfection was never the point; the point was the reach.

So, what did you think?