Updates, Journaling, and Looking Forward
Monday - January 12, 2026
Hello and happy belated Monday to some of you, I know it’s crazy to think about, but we’re already in the second week of January and there’s so much I forgot to tell you in last week’s letter - so let’s get that out of the way!
FIRSTLY - december 30, 31, and January 1 I was live on twitch for at least 8 hours a day - in that time we managed to raise $150 for TWLOHA (before time matching from my day job, counting all the revenue from emotes, and factoring in bits). So thank you so much to everyone who helped make that possible and thank you so much to everyone who showed up or shared the event information. All of you are wonderful and amazing and I’m so proud that while it was a smaller goal than usual we were able to do so much for our incredible cause. To celebrate we even had a fun challenge for me to dress up like my characters in Palia and Spirit City - and honestly I think that was a complete and utter blast - so maybe we’ll do that again in the future. Or we’ll make some sort of event out of that.
Secondly, I’ve been introduced to a new coworking game on Steam and I’ve been loving the crap out of it - On-Together. And I love the demo so much I’ve decided I’m doing a give away specifically for my Patreon supporters (it’s not to late to head on over and pledge for a month or two if you wanna check out what happens behind the scenes or to try your hand at the giveaway). AND I’ll be doing a second separate giveaway for my Instagram and Discord community combined - I’m still working out the details for that one but I’ll have them figured out and announced later this week so the winner can be notified on January 18th (the day before the game releases). Really when I tell you I’m so excited for us to have our own server, timers, mini games, and to be able to quite literally be together despite the community being world wide I’m thrilled.
Thirdly, a handful of you are trying your hands at novels and short stories - whether this is your first time or your 20th - I’m so excited to be reading all your amazing drafts, sharing feedback and watching you grow - but I’m not the only one in the community you can share with! There’s a whole WRITERS section in the discord that anyone can share ideas, snippets, or request more detailed feedback from the community. Also we have a free writing bot anyone can use to track their word count, writing time, drafts, or to give them prompts. If you need help finding or utilizing these tools please don’t hesitate to reach out. Also I’d like to do a bluejay novel writing month that isn’t november and last year January didn’t have a lot of traction so if you have a new timing suggestion please let me know. Which also leads me to the Reading with BlueJay bookclub reminder - it’s back! And january’s book is Winter Hours by Mary Oliver. And February’s book will be a classic tale but I haven’t decided which one just yet. This free event can be joined by anyone through discord and we have a monthly book club meeting where we not only discuss the book but get free prompts to take away from it and everyone who joins gets the opportunity to share one piece crafted from those prompts with me for dedicated one-on-one feedback. Please bring your friends, your loved ones, and your best scribbliest and messiest annotations.
And lastly before we get into this week’s workshop portion of the newsletter, I’ve been working on a not so secret blog for a while while I’ve been trying to get my website recovered and back up and running (if I’ve got any tech friends who want to lend a hand PLEASE reach out!) So if you’d like to check out poetry more or less daily - kinda sorta daily - and micro updates believe me when I tell you this is the place. I’m also looking for help creating a custom widget that will take you to a random post (if you know why this is important to me you’ve been here for so long and I love and appreciate you so much more than I have words for, and if you don’t quite get it, that’s okay welcome in!) Also if the blog gets enough collective views, I’d like to turn it into it’s own poetry collection in a physical form (Like Iwrotethisforyou - but I've got ideas to put my own bluejay spin on it - I promise).
OKAY, without further ado, let’s jump into this week’s workshop concept! This week I’ve doing a lot of jounraling - in fact so far this year (I know it’s only a little over a week) I’ve written at least two pages of journal entries a day. And honestly, that’s really impressive - even after having surviuved the artist’s way 2 times in one year (handwriting 5 pages by hand every single goddamn day about “whatever” was on my mind was kind of wild - especially since it’s soooooo different from sitting down to write poetry). BUT this journaling has inspired this week’s art workshop becasue art therapy, journal therapy, and baking therapy are all real things. And I don’t know if we dont make time to take care of ourselves and take stock of where we’re really at while it’s too cold and still to do much out in the real world then when are we ever going to sit down and show up for ourselves? Of course there will be examples, but before we get into those let me give you your prompts so you can decide which one(s) call to you and what medium(s) you might want to explore this week. BONUS points if you actually sit down and journal about it before you dive in!
Think about one goal you have for this year or a resolution you’ve set for yourself, what is it, how did you decide this was the year, why is it important to you, and what ACTIONABLE steps can you or have you been taking to bring it to life?
Pick a word of the year - for example mine is unapologetically - I’m determined to live unapologetically I apologize way too much on a daily basis and I’ve let way too many people get into my head and convince me how I should or shouldn’t be living and you know what I’m not living for them I’m living for ME. And the LY is important for me because it turns unapologetic into an adverb and that adverb can then describe any aspect of my life not just keep me contained to one box or area of becoming unapologetic. Now I know that’s more info than you were looking for but I have also found with a word of the year examples are incredibly helpful.
What inspires you (in general) and why? Followed up with how do you inspire yourself and what about that can you replicate more often?
Now that you’ve got your prompts and your general idea, take some time to actually journal on the idea and consider what mediums you might like to play with. Maybe you want to write a definition poem for your word of the year. Maybe you loved collages last week and want to make a collage for your word of the year. Maybe you have a resolution and you can create a sculpture of you doing or being or looking the way your goal would allow you to. Maybe you want to bake your childhood favorite dessert or cook your favorite comfort meal because your parents inspire you and you can be a little more like them by doing this. Or maybe you have a different idea entirely - you feel inspired when you dance through the kitchen in your socks or you can get one step closer to your yearly goal by folding all the clean laundry every monday and a way to make that more enjoyable is to watch a movie while you do. GREAT! Whatever it is - go do that! And remember it’s okay to take a few tries to land on something you’re proud of and it may also take a few days or weeks, or even months in some cases, to find a routine that actually works for you and helps to get you where you want to go.
EXAMPLES:
You may have already seen this first one on my Instagram page or in the discord server under the 2026 dailies thread, but I’m sharing it again here because it is relavent and also because I created it from the very same journal prompt I shared with you above.
EXAMPLE 2:
2026 New Year Resolutions are made
with good intentions just like any other year,
but this time catch my journaling without paper
or sacrificing my handwriting and stickers, watch
as I make time every night for a hot cup of tea, an
audiobook I’ve never listened to before, and the words
going to town without any concern for rhythm, rhyme
or what an audience might think because this time
these are all mine. Not for sharing, not for other eyes,
not a performance - just a way of showing up for
myself, taking stock of where I really am, and
considering where the hell it is I actually want to
call home. The playlists have gotten less frequent
but they have no less depth or involvement - so
let the music roar at it’s highest volume while I
wander around this block taking note of all the
new and interesting things that change from week
to week (it’s astonishing how quickly people in this
town get bored of themselves), and I’ll listen again
when the shower is too cold for comfort and when
the stars have forgotten how to scream back at me.
Oh and in case you were wondering, I don’t know
how it happened, but I haven’t skipped a single
meal this year, even when I had the stomach bug
or the two days I just couldn’t be bothered to let
the year begin so I stayed in bed with the covers
pulled up and the shades drawn closed all day long.
This year I’ve got resolutions but I’ve also finally
figured out what it is I need to do to make them real.
If you haven’t, if reading this makes you nervous,
don’t worry darling, you’ve still got time. The
Lunar new year doesn’t even switch from slithering
snake to wild and free horse until the middle of February.
EXAMPLE 3:
Something in general that inspires me is how many people still send snail mail around the world, something about me that inspires me is how dedicated I am to making sure people I love receive happy and joyful and just for fun mail at least a few times a year. So I made myself a set of ten postcards and prewrote them to myself, and mailed them to a friend (stamped dated and addressed) that she can just drop off at her local post office whenever she feels like it. This way I can receive fun mail too not just send it. This also reminds me that I haven’t put a reminder here yet - February is InCoWriMo (International Correspondance Writing Month) if you’d like to celebrate by mailing one thing a day for the entire month of February and you’d like to exchange mail with me please please please reach out last year I sent 122 pieces of mail in 28 days and this year my goal is to surpass that!
PLAYLIST TIME:
As a reminder, these have shifted from weekly to monthly, and the link expires every seven days so even though this is a new link it is the same list! If you added last week, you can still add this week and you can invite others to add to it even if they aren’t necessarily part of the bluejay community. If for any reason you can’t add to the list please just reach out with a list of songs and I’ll make sure they get included.
ONE WORD PROMPTS:
Button
Plottomg
Genuine
User
Liberty
Charm
Hall
WORD BANK PROMPTS:
maid, couple, offender, clock, houseplant, cross
sodium, jewel, gear, lemon, knot, weigh
build, study, beam, linear, snail, sample
premature, chop, shame, consistency, mathematics, cooperation
witch, give, impound, combination, plane, immune
virgin, loss, hay, carbon, absence, employee
adult, limited, leave, strict, activity, cigarette
THIS WEEK’S CHALLENGE PROMPTS:
Take a photograph you’d be proud to frame or see framed on someone else’s desk or wall.
Bake a single serve dessert - we all deserve a treat from time to time and isn’t it amazing to know you made it too!
Micro art: on an index card, sticky note, mini frame whatever you like create a drawing, painting, collage or scratch art inspired by your word of the year
Write a letter to yourself that you can’t open for AT least 3 months, write a letter to yourself from the past, and write a final letter to your past self from your future self. BONUS points if you actually mail it or make it cute and in an envelope with the addresses of your past and current self on it!
Create a postcard or folding card that you’d send to someone who needs a little extra warmth this winter. BONUS points if you actually send it to someone.
Tomorrow is BOTH national sticker day and national rubber duck day - create your own rubber duck sticker! BONUS points if you create enough prototypes that we can share them within the community! Like a sticker swap!
Pick a song you loved at a previous point in your life but haven’t listened to in a while, listen to it on repeat at least three times and create whatever you want inspired by that feeling of nostalgia or possible annoyance or the growth you’ve experienced since this song was relevant and now.
THIS WEEK’S CELEBRATIONS:
Today the 12th: Kiss a ginger day, national clean off your desk day, national marzipan day, national curried chicken day, national phramacist day
TOMORROW the 13th: BLUEJAY TWITCH STREAM 8-11pm Pacific time, National shop for travel day, national sticker day, Korean American day, national pach melba day, national rubber ducky day, stephen foster memorial day
Wednesday January 14: National dress up your pet day, national hot pastrami day, ratification day
Thursday the 15th: Get to know your customers day, national bagel day, national kombucha day, national strawberry ice cream day, national hat day
Friday the 16th: BLUEJAY Movie night - this week we’re watching Paddington National religious freedoms day, national fig newton day, national nothing day, national without a scalpel day
Saturday the 17th: Mama Bluejay’s birthday, popeye the sailor man day, national classy day, national use your giftcard day, national bootleggers day, national hot buttered rum day
Sunday the 18th: National Michigan Day, national Thesaurus Day, national peking duck day, national winnie the pooh day
NEXT MONDAY the 19th: BLUEJAY TWITCH STREAM 8-11pm Pacific time, National imagination day, martin luther king jr day, national popcorn day
This week’s favorites:
Book of the week: I’ve been rereading the Starless Sea - when the beginning talks about a January day - this book very much is a January book, and I love revisiting it every year around now. I also sincerely hope there’s going to be a sequel.
Poem of the week:
Drink of the week: Ginger lemon honey tea you can make your own or there are plenty of brands that sell a premixed version of this combination. I love making my own but when I don’t have the ingredients on hand the stash version is definitely one of my favorites.
Water of the week: lemon, lime, and watermelon infused. I know it’s an odd choice for winter, but I’ve just really been enjoying this one.
Song of the week: Somebody’s gonna love by wldlfe
Of course this newsletter wouldn’t mean anything if it weren’t for all of you that get it directly to your inboxes, check out substack weekly, or seek it out when you need an extra boost of inspiration, so thank you so much for joining me here yet again. Of course if you create anything inspired by this one I can’t wait to see it. And if you haven’t yet please consider joining me on instagram or discord as those are the two most active places to be a part of the community!
Sincerely,
Bluejay