(Coffee shop daze)

We’re friends, right? So I can be honest with you? Good.

See, sometimes I sit down to write, and I feel completely overwhelmed. I’ve been working a book for ten years and it’s not done and I would really like to scream about it. I’ve put in so much work, and I have SO much work left ahead of me. Rewrite this. Edits until you’re blind. Agents and publishing houses and marketing and taking chances.

Honestly, sometimes, I sit down and I think, “I don’t want to do this anymore.”

I feel like I’ve been trapped in this incubation process since FOREVER and I wonder if I’ll ever get out.
I feel like a failure because I haven’t accomplished the only thing my soul has been longing for me to do.
I feel stupid for betting everything on a hope, a wish, a dream.

But as soon as I go through these thoughts, I think, “Then what? If not this, then what else?”
Believe me when I say I’ve taken some time to answer that question.

I can’t think of anything else.

Nothing else calls to me like writing does. Nothing else stirs me. Nothing else seems worth that effort and dedication.
This is part of who I am. This is inside me.

I write because I must.

We all have down days, when we just don’t wanna. That’s okay. Being a human is hard.

Take the time to remember why you’re doing what  you’re doing.
Ask yourself, “If not this, then what else?”