Day 5: On Transformation
Our First Annual New Year Journaling Challenge
A writer’s work is a long road lined with rejection, revision, and rejoicing.
In late December I received news that I was short-listed for an award with Bridport Prize, a fantastic organization in the UK that supports writers. In writer speak, being long-listed means you advance through the first round of a competition and your work is considered for the next round which is called short-listed.
The turn around time for the second round was tight. I had one week to submit an additional 15,000 words of my writing to be qualified and considered for the short-list.
The timing was terrible. (As it often is when opportunities arise.)
I was solo parenting my son, Jaad, who got sick the week of the competition and needed extra love and attention. I stayed up very late to write. I woke up very early. I let him watch way too much TV. But I was undeterred.
In the final hour (which I shamefully admit is my style), I met my deadline and submitted my words to the competition.
A month later I received the news that my writing had not been selected for the next round.
Frances, the kind and compassionate woman who was managing the applicants sent me an encouraging and kind note. In her message she included words by the incomparable, Maya Angelou, that I had encountered many times before:
“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.” -Maya Angelou
Yet somehow, I felt perhaps for the first time that I really understood what they meant.
The competition prize was the goal but the transformation had occurred in the doing, the writing.
The steadfast work of putting my head down and writing earnestly. The pain of waking up in pre-dawn hours. The push to quiet the incessant noise around me and focus. The commitment to tell a story I believe is worth telling. It was even in the moments of resigning myself to just hold Jaad in my arms for hours and knowing that is the most important job I had in that moment.
Every sentence I wrote, I became more confident in telling my story. I believed that it was worthy of the action.
So when I received the news from Frances, I was able to accept it with grace and gratitude. Frances’s encouragement to continue writing also helped soften the blow.
But beyond that it made me think of other instances where the outcome wasn’t what I’d hoped, but what I’d gained in the process. I looked back in retrospect with fresh eyes. How many times had I missed that the transformation - sometimes slow and subtle - had occurred in the process?
With these words in mind, I invite you to our fifth day of journaling.
Day 5 Lunar New Year Journaling Prompt:
Transformation isn’t always loud. Sometimes, it’s a quiet unfolding—like the way dawn slowly brightens the sky, or how seasons shift without fanfare. We often think of transformation as a dramatic event, a before-and-after moment. But sometimes transformation happens in the in-between.
It can happen in the discomfort of growth, the stretch of learning, the small, daily choices that nudge us toward something new. Perhaps it’s in shedding old versions of ourselves—not because they were wrong, but because we’re ready to usher in a new way of being.
But what if we saw transformation not as an ending, but as an evolution? A process of becoming—one that’s ongoing, fluid, and deeply human.
✨ Reflect & Write:
Think about a time in your life when you experienced transformation—whether big or small.
What sparked this change? Was it intentional, or did it unfold unexpectedly?
How did you feel during the process—excited, uncertain, resistant?
What parts of yourself would you like to let go of - if any - and what new parts do you hope emerge?
May be all recognize and embrace the slow, steady transformations in our lives, my beloved readers.
Love,
Summer