Tag Archives: bloganuary

My Writing Goals For 2025

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My Writing Goals For 2025

It’s almost the end of December and that means 2024 is almost over. It’s time to set some goals for next year. I don’t do resolutions. I do goals. They’re more meaningful to me and I’m more likely to strive to achieve them.

First and foremost are my writing goals. When I’m here in Mexico, I have more time to write. More importantly I have more time to write without interruption. This means I sometimes boot up my laptop at midnight and write for a few hours. Breakfast can sometimes be at two in the afternoon or later. My time is my own.

I’ll start with the novel I’m writing. It’s actually turning into a trilogy. While there is some fine tuning I still have to do on all three parts, I’m into the homestretch now. My goal is to have this ready for publishing in the spring when I return up north. Then I need to decide which country to publish it in. My first two books were published in the USA but now I’m leaning towards having the next one published in Canada.

WordPress is presenting its annual bloganuary again this year. I’m going to attempt it. This means a writing prompt a day for thirty-one days. I won’t post all of them to my blog, but I do intend to post a few of the more interesting ones. Sometimes these writing prompts can be quite bizarre.

Another goal I have is to write in Spanish. Until now I have primarily been writing in English. My writing in Spanish tends to be on What’s App, Facebook and texts. While my main focus in Spanish has always been in speaking, I want to do some writing to improve my grammar rather than merely the exercises on Duolingo.

And when I’m not writing, I still have all those pics I scanned last summer that need to be organized………….

Bloganuary on WordPress

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Bloganuary on WordPress

Write about your first name: its meaning, significance, etymology, etc.

The above is one of the writing prompts this month on WordPress. It intrigues me as I’ve never really delved into the meaning of the name “Karen” before. So here goes.

I’ll start with present day. For some reason the name “Karen” has become synonymous as referring to an extraordinarily unpleasant person (I’m being tactful) and has quite a negative connotation. On social media people are constantly being attacked – “You’re such a Karen!” For the record, I do not consider myself to be either entitled or demanding. I also take offense that so many people are using my name to insult or hurt other women.

When I was growing up in Winnipeg it was not a common name. When I arrived in Mexico back in 2010 I met a couple of other Karens, although the pronunciation is different. But when I arrived in Leavenworth it seemed like everyone was named Karen.

I’ve done some research. Karen is a shorter version of the name Katherine. It originated from the Danes and the Greeks. It means “pure” or “innocent.” Okay, readers. If you know me personally you can stop laughing right now. Those two words probably best describe me when I was a newborn or an infant.

Then I found a reference to the Viking name Katrin which also means “pure” or “chaste.”

Next we have a biblical meaning. Keren-Happuch appears as the name of Job’s youngest daughter. The meaning here is “child of beauty.”

Then there are a group of indigenous people in southeast Asia on the Thailand-Burma border who are called Karen.

Here’s a rather unusual one. St. Karen is the patron saint of those suffering from miscarriages.

And I wonder what my parents were thinking when they chose the name “Karen” for me.