Daily Archives: September 24, 2014

Day 59 – Keeping the faith when the odds are against you

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Day fifty-nine of my 365 Day Writing Project.

Words: 500

I have been doing quite a bit of reading around the WordPress community lately, checking out some pretty fabulous and interesting blogs by fellow writers. While I embrace the fact that I’m a newbie in this role of writer/blogger, I am amazed at how talented many of these writers are. They make me strive to do better.

The best thing about being part of an interesting community like this is that there is so much encouragement and inspiration to be shared. Seriously, you can’t beat it. Every single day I get a shot of adrenaline here. The worst part is that I am gravely aware of how much I lack compared to so many others. I’m not published (at least not on the scale I want to be). My blog is basic and needs a major makeover. I’m not networked enough. I’m lousy at marketing myself. And the most difficult: I don’t have enough time to put a decent amount of effort into any of those things.

I tell myself that it doesn’t matter; I should compare myself to no one. I should only be concerned with my own strides and accomplishments, that when mashed all together illustrate my journey to reach my dream of becoming a professional writer. I’m in the depths of this journey with millions of miles to go, but because of this blog and my 365 Day Writing Project, I’m realizing gains ten-fold compared to what I was doing a year ago. I am writing every day. And I have no intention of stopping until I realize my dream.

The odds are against me. Just like they are against so many of my fellow writers out there. But we must keep at it anyway. We must look beyond the odds to focus on our personal goals and what the future has in store for us. While I continue to work on doing that, I just want to say: Thanks for the encouragement. Thanks for the inspiration. And thanks for making me strive to do better.

Day 58 – When to start a new chapter

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Day fifty-eight of my 365 Day Writing Project.

Words: 1,100

No, this is not some metaphorical discussion about starting a new chapter in life. This is a discussion about writing a chapter of a book, coming to a stopping point and then starting a new chapter. So when is a good time to do that? I’m sure some of my fellow writers out there can chime in (and please do), but I believe the end of a chapter should happen at a place in the story with a logical pause or ending and some foreshadowing as to what may be next. I picture myself reading a good book, coming to the end of a chapter. I breathe, soak up the journey of the last however-many pages, and unable to resist the urge to turn the page to see what happens next, I turn it. Anticipation wins. A new start. A continuation. Or maybe even a new journey.

Yesterday, I would have said that I was about halfway through the chapter I was writing. Today, I ended that chapter far sooner than I had planned. It is much shorter than most of the chapters I have written in this book. But the story came to a perfect place to pause, breathe and soak it up. Like turning the page of a good book, I selected “New Document” from the menu and a perfect white screen appeared before me. Anticipation won again. I hit the keys full stride, writing the next part of the journey. New chapters energize me. But there is just something magical about turning that page…

Oh hell, maybe this IS a metaphorical discussion about life.