That January feeling
Do you also suffer from peer pressure from the other people in your head?
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Hello writers,
The year ended with everyone’s ‘best of’ lists, and now it’s starting with lists of resolutions. It can all be a bit much.
I used to be BIG into resolutions. I’d write them out by hand and tack them up on my wall or cupboard and look at them all year in a sort of self-imposed browbeating. I totally get that feeling of needing to reinvent yourself, to start anew, especially when the world is bonkers and 2025 was not the best year for many people.
Side note, I love this idea of a January Reset that Karin Schimke is running on Love Letter.
Though I’m not as into resolutions, I’m not opposed to setting goals. I still do it. I don’t know how not to do it. Maybe it’s because I’m a list maker.
This year my goal is to get 26 rejections for my writing (or, one every other week). Rejections are tough - they definitely give me a confidence wobbly and make me question what I’m doing. But, what makes rejection easier is having a story to send out right away. So one rejection in, one story out. That’s my goal.
The only way to get stories is to write, so this is a sort of sneaky complex goal that requires me to keep writing without actually scaring myself by saying that.
If you’d like to join me on this quest for rejection, you can sign up to one of the 11 workshops I’m running in the first half of this year. And guess what? The January one is cheap cheap.
Here are all those details, in case you missed them
Dates and themes 2026
23 January (Online only!) The best of 2025. My five favourite writing exercises from 2025 on building character, setting scene, building emotion, writing dialogue, and writing different forms.
14 February (Cape Town) / 20 February (Online) - Writing love. Here we’ll write and learn about writing love, sex, romance, and relationships. We’ll look at the currently popular romance genres, and talk about what they entail.
14 March (Cape Town) / 20 March (Online) - Writing speculative. Speculative fiction is like writing about the real world, but with a twist. We’ll look at some great local examples, what people expect from the speculative, and I’ll share some tips and tricks for building a world.
18 April (Cape Town) / 24 April (Online) - Memoir and life writing. We’ll explore some great examples of memoir, some of the central tenets of a strong piece of life writing, and how you can use your life experiences to write fiction.
16 May (Cape Town) / 22 May (Online) - Writing with the senses and through the seasons. We’ll use sensory cues and the weather to nudge us towards some vivid setting, affected characters, and tense plots.
13 June (Cape Town) / 19 June (Online) - Writing youth. Here we’ll talk about using memory in writing exercises, capturing a child or young character’s voice, what YA is and what some of the central elements are, and I’ll share some great local examples.
Prices for workshops
January special workshop - online only - R250.
Online workshops - R400 each, or R1800 for all five (Feb - June)
In-person workshops - R500 each, or R2250 for all five (Feb - June)
To sign up, email me: jenthorpewrites@gmail.com
‘Its all a bit much’ sounds about right yet we mostly still feel compelled to do it all, hey? I love the idea of a love inspired Feb workshop too.