A stove, hot enough, becomes effortless. You rake the embers and a new rush of heat floods its belly, ready to consume without coaxing.

Lately I've pointed my camera at negative space. I've exaggerated the rule of thirds and contemplated emptiness. It's a new January of a new year. I've got eleven months to write a novel I've only started with napkin scribbles. I need emptiness. Emptiness makes every new thing possible.

Negative space lives in a hungry belly. That kind of flame eats the air—you can see it. In the vaccuum of the stove, at that degree of heat, the very lack of oxygen burns. Embers on the bottom. A log in its bed, almost superfluous. And a fire that swirls high above, licking its own cast-iron ceiling.

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The new years' resolutions of others put me in a quiet frame of mind. I never make them. I read about it from a distance as though the whole concept doesn't apply to me. Which could be a fancy way of saying I don't like publicly aspiring to stuff I might never achieve. Which is a fancy way of saying I am a noncommital chickenshit. Fair enough. For whatever reason, the new year has always meant more to me as the the beginning of winter's downhill slide towards spring than as the some new era of betterment.

This year feels different.

I've got a lot to do. I've got to shuffle my life around in order to do it. Issues of logistics and time and motivation aside, I'm in a state of waiting for the smiles and shoulder-taps of ghosts. That's how it feels, anyway. Muse-like whispers that crop up as soon as you get out of your own way. A story that begins to feed on its own without coaxing.

I'd grimace if you made me call it a resolution, but it's something to do with the word discipline. Which doesn’t play well with words like stuck or paralyzed or doughy or twitter. It's the discipline of prepping my creative belly. To get it as hot and as empty as I possibly can.

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If your creativity during the upcoming year could take shape—or if the space that accommodates it could take shape—what would it look like? Show us.