License to Write

You guys, since New Year's Day, I have written 4,314 words in my book. 4,314!! This is a huge deal for me. :)

This is my goal for this year. My favorite part of this--you can't fall behind and you can't get ahead. Too often with things like NaNoWriMo, I can't keep up the pace and get hopelessly behind, and then I'm just so overwhelmed trying to make up for falling behind that I give up. This way, every day is a new day. I hit my target or I don't, either way I start the next day with a clean slate.

The biggest thing holding me back in my writing is typically my perfectionism. This time around, I'm letting that go. I'm writing this story for me and nobody else. I'm letting myself break rules and jump POVs and write heavy exposition in places, because you know what? It's a first draft. I don't know the full story yet, and if breaking some rules helps me figure it out, that's fine. If not everything makes sense, that's fine. I can go back on the second draft and fix it. But for now I'm just writing for fun, and it feels great. I really hope I can keep this up.

Word of the Year: Love

Last year Melissa gave me a challenge to pick a word of the year. A one word reminder of my goals and resolutions to help me keep on track.

This year, I've decided the word will be Love.

I picked love because I want to work on:

• Spending more time with my loved ones. They are the most important thing in my life, after all! 

• Returning to the things I love that I haven't had time for lately. The biggest one is creative writing. Let's get that novel written finally! I've been trying for forever.

• Loving myself more. Sometimes I can be too much of a perfectionist and too hard on myself.

• and of course, loving my fellow men.

Bring it on, 2016. I'm going to make this a good year.