I just don’t feel like writing a year-in-review post, y’all. So I might not.

🕎🖖🏻 I would like to thank s-h-a-s-e on Tumblr for this Hanukkah gift of Sarek, Amanda, and Spock celebrating.

In the words of Adam Sandler:

You don’t need Deck the Halls or Jingle Bells Rock ‘cuz you can spin the dreidel with Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock—both Jewish!

A photo of Mr. Spock celebrating Hanukkah with his parents. On the left, Spock's father Sarek wears a blue and white sweater with a menorah on it. In the middle, Spock's mother Amanda is wearing a blue head covering and a blue dress with a small dog in her lap. On the right, Spock wears a white robe and a menorah-shaped crown.&10;&10;Bing's AI assistant helped me write this alt-text.

Book Character, Age 25: Seeing her has me feeling seventeen again.

Me, Age 42: Please. You’re only 25. You’re barely not 17.

2006 Me, Age 25: (shaking her fist at 2023 Me) Stop being so ageist.

🍿📺🎄 Watched The Christmas Train.

Based on a David Baldacci novel & bringing a bit of star power with Dermot Mulroney, Joan Cusack, and Danny Glover. A journalist runs into an old flame on The Christmas Train. Cute stuff. Almost too high-quality actually, for the vibes I’m looking for.

Happy Hanukkah from this honorary M.O.T., whose 41% Jewishness is all on her dad’s side. 🕎

Happy Hanukkah from this honorary M.O.T., whose 41% Jewishness is all on her dad's side. 🕎

I was using Bing to play with ChatGPT-4 and I asked it who I am. It returned what is perhaps the most truthful answer.

A chat window for Bing creative mode. Question: Please tell me who is Kimberly Hirsh? Answer: Kimberly Hirsh is a person who has a website at kimberlyhirsh.com.

📝 Planning Writing Goals with Kate McKean

Kate McKean’s Agents and Books newsletter yesterday includes a flowchart to help you plan writing goals for next year.

I’m in the “I need a new idea” bubble, or rather, I have lots of ideas fragments but I’m not psyched enough to write any of them yet so I want to hoard even more ideas. So my goals are to:

  1. Read more. Sure, I’ve read 41 books this year but I know I can read more. Let’s have a loose, gentle goal of 50, counting audiobooks, comics, kids’ books, everything.

  2. Journal and blog. I’m going to do at least some of Esmé Weijun Wang’s Rawness of Remembering: Restorative Journaling Through Difficult Times. I’ve also got Austin Kleon’s The Steal Like an Artist Journal and Leigh Bardugo’s The Severed Moon. So I’ll look to those for help, and of course I’ll blog, too. I’m not setting a specific blogging goal but let’s say I’m shooting for some form of long-form journaling at least once a week.

  3. Have fun. If I’m doing 1 & 2 and it’s not fun, I’ll figure out how to make it fun.

📚 Today’s library haul. Catching up on Holigays22 and some other holiday reads, plus a YA biography of my hero Sarah Bernhardt - quand même!

A stack of holiday romance novels sitting on top of a biography of Sarah Bernhardt, next to a gingerbread house that's sitting on top of a holiday tin.