So, I haven’t written in…a while. I’m sorry for that. Both for not writing fiction and not writing blogs. The world is burning, literally and figuratively, and that’s been weighing on me heavily. It also weighs on me that I don’t say much about it here. This space has always been exclusively dedicated to writing. I’ve very rarely posted anything political or even remotely close to political. On my personal pages, I’m very political. So, if you’re reading this and wondering why I haven’t commented much on the state of the world, that’s why. This is my escape from reality, and I hope it can be yours a little bit, too. But rest assured that in my real life, I’m fighting the good fight to make sure we can maybe, hopefully someday have a world a little closer to my fictional one with *actual* equality.

That said… I want to dive back into the world of fiction. Let’s escape for just a little bit.

I have been working on 1,000,000 words in 2020. I’m behind. Woefully behind. I figured out that if I write 10,000 a day for the month of June, I’ll be caught up. That’s a tall order, and even though I can bang that out in a few hours if I’m focused, I can’t imagine that I can keep that focus for 30 days. But I’m going to give it a shot. At the very least, I would like to write the 80,000 for June that would have gotten me to 1,000,000 over 12 months.

But that brings me to a thought I’ve had circulating in my mind for a while I wanted to share. Especially right now, things are overwhelming. In my self-imposed writing challenge, 10,000 words a day is overwhelming. It’s easy to say, “Well, I can’t do that, so I won’t write at all.” But… wouldn’t it be better to write 1,000 words than 0 words? Wouldn’t it be better to write 5 words? Of course it would! You wouldn’t tell your favorite writer to quit because the challenge was too great. So you shouldn’t tell yourself to quit either. (Or in this case, myself.)

So whatever challenge you’re facing, see if you can do ONE THING toward your goal. Maybe that’s write 100 words. Maybe that’s get out of bed instead of sleep in. Maybe that’s brush your teeth when you’re too overwhelmed to take a shower. Put one foot in front of the other, take it one moment at a time if you have to, but don’t give up.

What struggles are you facing? Feel free to vent in the comments, even if (especially if) you know that your struggles aren’t as bad as other people’s. It’s not a competition. ❤