begin again

Dear all,

right now, there is snow in Berlin and in Hamburg, two days ago it snowed at our house here in the countryside. Snow feels right for the new year: a fresh blanket, a kind of empty page, a covering up of what was, to allow for a feeling of newness.

The metaphor is obviously flawed (underneath our snow there’s a lot of leaves that needed to be raked), but I do like the way snow makes me feel. Like time is slow, and there is space to begin again.

As usual, lots of people are asking about new years resolutions. Those don’t really work for me (I get more disappointed by not fulfilling them than a feeling of positive encouragement). But I’m always thinking of things in cycles, setting goals and considering what to put my energy and time towards in the coming months.

This year has two very clear areas of focus for me, which both started last summer. For one, to work foremost on my health (I’ve written here frequently about my chronic migraines, so y’alls know how much life focus this takes). That’s been going well and I’m very grateful for the support, the progress and the insights the years have given me in how to balance life and work and my body. I’m better than I was a year ago, by a long shot, and that’s something big to celebrate and keep investing in.

The second area of focus for this year, and the one I most want to share with you about, is my novel. For those who don’t know, I’ve been working on this new project seriously since the beginning of last summer. I started with a handful of pages I had written over three years, a short story about a woman going through a breakup, and the grief that followed this experience. The protagonist and her lover/partner are house sitting an artist’s mansion made of glass somewhere in New England, surrounded by forest and water. Something between them breaks, and the story is about their unraveling.

But as I wrote, the story turned out to be about so much more: it’s about the loss of love but also of friendships that end and break your heart, it’s about visas and mixed-race relationships and passport privilege, it’s about grief and heartbreak literature, it’s about conversations with friends, about airport terminals and in between places, long car rides under grey skies, sisters and love in many different forms. I can’t share too much at the moment, but things are going well. I have around 100 pages (a little less than half the book), and I am working towards a sale by the end of the year. Again, there’s more I can share in the future, but a short segment of the book was published through Delfi Magazine in the fall, and the response was overwhelmingly positive.

I always end the newsletter mentioning ways you can support my creative work, but this time, I’m asking more seriously, as I need the freedom to only focus on the book for 2026. 2025 was a hard year for many, and 2026 comes with a lot of uncertainty. I know many are struggling financially as well, so I understand if it is not possible to give your support in this way. However, if you can, it is enormously helpful as I navigate the next 8 months up until selling the novel, to have people continuously investing in my work. The best way to do so is by joining my patreon: patreon.com/pattykimhamilton. Alternatively, you can send me a one time gift on Venmo (patty-hamilton). For those who have supported me through substack, I’m still figuring out to access those funds! And thank you! I’m trying to fund myself to write the book as independently as possible, to have the most freedom in writing what I believe to be important for this book on heartbreak. Currently, I’m living mostly off of savings, the funds I’ve squirelled away over the years from Patreon, and some teaching.

For all those who support the work financially, I’ll be able to send some snippets of drafts, some videos of my reading specific chapters, and some insights into the writing process. I want to include people more in this, as it can feel very lonely to write a book, but to me it is very much a communal process born out of all the conversations and experienced I’ve gathered over the years with all of you.

Anyways, I don’t want to go on too long or be too rambly. Thank you everyone, for the time you take to read this, and all the many ways you support me. Your response emails always encourage me and mean a great deal to me. I hope 2026 is kind to you, that you have good health (the most important thing), and people who love you.

My warmest,

Patty