My Word of the Year for 2025

I'm Just Gonna Play, Y'all ✌️

Can you believe it’s 2025? It sounds so futuristic. I hope you had a lovely Christmas and New Year—Butterbean’s not back in school yet and we just got a surprise snowfall in the mountains with more coming tonight, so it still feels like vacation to me!

My first essay of the past few New Years has been about choosing a Word of the Year to reflect on the previous year and set some intentions for the upcoming year. So here we go!

Previous Words of the Year

In 2021, I tried to branch out and Grow upward.
In 2022, I tried to dig down to the roots and go Deeper.
In 2023, I tried to zoom out to Harmonize what matters most.
In 2024, I contentedly sank into Unknowing.

So what will my word of the year be for 2025? I’m not really sure where you go after a year of Unknowing, so let’s first look back at the past year before I noodle over that. So unknowing, eh?

Recap of 2024

Here’s a quick look at what happened last year at Might Could!

• I published a new book, Might Could Make a Book: How to Write, Illustrate, and Publish Your Children’s Picture Book! I revised and updated of my two most popular online classes, taken by over 14,000 students, to make it into a printed book!

• And published a second new book(!), We Are Jellyfish, a children’s picture book I had been working on for 2.5 years! This is the second book in my We Are… series. I’m already ideating on what organism should be next. :)

• I shared the final 9 (of 41!) process posts in my Substack section, Might Could Make a Book, about the making of We Are Jellyfish.

• I released Sketchbook to Style as an online class on Skillshare. This is my flagship in-depth course on developing your artistic style. If you don’t have a Skillshare membership, this link will give you 1 free month! (Psst… Sketchbook to Style is also available as a printed book if you prefer a reading!

• I created a serialized comics collection, IVF Comics, as a way to process and share my experience with infertility + IVF. I described these comics in the very first one as dumb and messy, and I thoroughly enjoyed the freedom, looseness, and no-planning/no-expectations method of creating them. Spoiler Alert: I’m now 21 weeks pregnant. ❤️

• I wrote fewer essays in 2024 (as I focused on my books) but here are a few I’m proud of:

  • How to Make a Portrait of a Bird (AKA: How to Make a Piece of Art)

  • What Makes Your Art Good or Bad? Four Theories on Judging Art

  • If We’re Not Supposed to Draw, Why All The Frogs? Inspired by the poet Gregory Orr (and also Rumi!)

  • My Journey to Discovering the Art I Want to Make

• I wrote some poems?! In February, I was invited to be the Writer-in-Residence for a month-long Cohort in the writer's collective, Foster. I found this experience more impactful than I anticipated and it kind of felt like my head cracked open a bit (in a good way!). In 2023, I had been trying to write essays about spirituality + creativity through a series called The Art of Wisdom, but was struggling to untangle and communicate my thoughts. During the Foster Cohort, it dawned on me that an essay was not the right format for what I was trying to say. From there, a poem poured out of me in a pure moment of flow that somehow says it all. After that, I wrote some others and really enjoyed exploring a new method of creating.

• I’m still off social media! I quit social media in April 2022 and have not gone back! Highly recommend.

• I’m still not drinking! I quit drinking alcohol in August 2022 and am still goin’ strong, so I’ve now been alcohol-free for two years and four months—that’s 872 days!

• We moved Butterbean from a full-day/5-day to a half-day/4-day school program. It’s such a sweet community and her extra time out of school is spent either with she and I doing something together (swimming, library, park, cooking, etc.) or her having self-directed, no-adult playtime. It’s been wonderful for both of us. Do I have less time to work? Yes. But the benefits are more important to me right now, and you’d be surprised what you can still get done in 16 hours/week.

• We’ve become more involved in our church community. I finished my two-year terms on the two community boards I was on, but have become more involved with our church—something I didn’t think I’d be saying 3 years ago! We’re part of a small group and a young parents group, we go most weeks to the Thursday night dinners, and I created what I called an Art Walk in the church to help raise awareness for a program they were creating. They even let me draw on the windows with Poscas! Being a part of a real community like this, with a network of giving and receiving support, and encouraging a sense of something-greater-than-day-to-day-life is relatively new for me, but—at the risk of sounding melodramatic—it has been a total game-changer in my life and mental well-being.

All my IVF Comics from 2024.

Unknowing What?

Whew! I’m always surprised to write this recap and review everything I created over the previous year. But as I was looking back, this one line in my essay titled My Journey to Discovering the Art I Want to Make, stands out:

“I feel more alive as an artist and more creatively energized right now than I ever have before.”

Who’d have thunk it? The year I decided to let go, not make a bunch of overly ambitious plans, and stopped trying to force things into happening… well, it was kind of like a drain unclogging, and the real things, the good things, were allowed to happen. Things I had been wanting deep down for years! Like making Might Could Make a Book and finishing We Are Jellyfish. And writing whatever the heck I wanted to on this Substack!

So what exactly led me to feel more creatively open and energized? I think there’s a big clue at the end of last year’s Word of the Year essay. Previously, at the end of these New Year’s essays, I would write up a Big Important Plan for the next year, full of new initiatives, exciting announcements, and schedules to meet specific goals. But last year, I didn’t do that. Instead, I listed three simple “loosey-goosey goals”: (1) Work on We Are Jellyfish, (2) Work on turning my picture book classes into a book and (3) Draw in my sketchbook. That was it!

And lo and behold, having loose, simple goals instead of rigid, convoluted goals led to a whole lot more getting done—and not just task work, but things that matter to me, things that mean something to me, things that feel fulfilling.

I think, when I let go of thinking I knew what I could achieve in a year or trying to pack in as much as I could possibly get done in a year, my whole body and brain and imagination relaxed and breathed deeply and said, alright then, let’s just play.

In short, I got out of my own way.

Some of my favorite sketchbook drawings from 2024.

Intentions for 2025

All that to say, I’m gonna try to keep that mindset going into this new year. I have some new no-pressure-no-expectations goals for 2025. I’m not declaring any new schedule or concocting new, big projects. These are just the directions I would like to travel towards—a way to orient myself and what I do each day.

• 👶 It’s gonna be a Baby Year. I’m currently 21 weeks pregnant and lil’ baby Blueberry is due in May. When I was pregnant with Butterbean, I approached motherhood like a typical Millennial—I thought to myself: “I’m not gonna let this baby change my life or get in the way of my career goals!” But you know, ha-ha, babies do not care about silly things like careers or other people’s needs. It took me a long time to allow myself to sink into motherhood (aka become more flexible and less self-absorbed). Anyways, I could write a million words about all that, but the point is: Butterbean taught me a lot about what’s important in life and how sometimes you gotta put other people’s needs in front of your own (and how that in itself can be more fulfilling and liberating than just doing what you want all day long). So! This time around, I’m going into second-baby-hood trying to keep all that in mind. I’m going into this year expecting that I will not be as productive as I was this year was. And that is ok.

• 💻 Launch my Picture Book online class. I know I said I wasn’t committing to any big projects, but this was really a 2023 project that is 95% already done! I plan to release this new class in January and then after that, I’ll be taking a break from big projects like classes and books. I’ll still be making things and sharing here in this Substack! But I’m not going to box myself into any new, big projects or initiatives right now. We’ll just see what happens!

• ✏️ Draw in my sketchbook. That’s it!

My Word of the Year: Play

So I think, now that reflected back and pondered forward, I’ve come up with my Word of the Year for 2025: Play.

This year is going to be a year of upheaval (in a good way) and so, will require flexibility, remaining open, and fitting in some creativity whenever I can. To allow that to happen, and to allow myself all the time and space I need (and want!) to care for my growing family, I’m dedicating this the year of Play.

I’ll just make things for fun. With no expectations, no judgment, no timelines or deadlines, and for no reason other than just because I felt like it. I’ll draw or I’ll write or I’ll make a comic or I’ll explore something new. I’ll take the beginner’s mindset and not care how good what I make is. I’ll make stuff just because it’s fun to make stuff. I’ll just play.

I can tell this is the right word and right direction for this year because it excites me and relaxes me at the same time. I can take it easy. I can focus on lil’ Blueberry. And I can just play on the page.

What Happenin’ in This Substack!

To wrap up, here’s a quick summary of how I Might Could Do That! is currently set up going into 2025.

• Once a week: Like last year, I aim to send subscribers one post per week, rotating between writing and drawing or both as I wish. I don’t know where I will be pulled this year, but I’m sure I’ll get pulled somewhere!

• On whatever day it happens: I used to force myself to post every Tuesday (because, you know, they say to be consistent) but then I realized that’s dumb and no one cares and now I send out my posts on whatever day I finish them. I’m much happier and my work is much better this way.

• Free subscribers get 50% of my posts, while paid subscribers get 100%. Your financial contribution supports all of my work and allows me to continue writing and making things! 🎉 (Psst… it’s 50% off if you upgrade by January 13!). 🎉

• Content: My post content varies, but it all revolves around how to live as an artist, mom, and human being, exploring creativity and artmaking, and how art influences and improves our lives. Sometimes my essays are more word-heavy, and sometimes they’re more art-heavy. Sometimes I have one or two series going on, and sometimes I make a bunch of one-offs. Who knows what this year has in store?

2025’s Word of the Year

In 2021, I tried to branch out and Grow upward.
In 2022, I tried to dig down to the roots and go Deeper.
In 2023, I tried to zoom out and Harmonize what matters most.
In 2024, I contentedly sank into Unknowing.
In 2025, I’m just gonna Play.

Thanks for reading! Do you have a word of intention for this year? Or does one come to mind now? What is it?!

<3,
Christine