Because I’m annoying proud of keeping the writing group going almost every single weekend for nearly two years, and especially proud of the progress and achievements of all who’ve been coming, I made everyone at the table share something positive about their writing over the past year. It can be easy to forget to take stock of the great things we’ve ticked off our lists, even if they’re as simple as, “I made time to write nearly every week.”

It filled me up to hear what people shared, and served as a good reminder that the writing life contains multitudes. For the last couple of months, I’ve been pretty creatively frustrated. Drafting book two while fielding rejections on book one has made the writing so much harder. A couple of weeks ago, at another writing group I’ve newly joined, we were asked to share some short-term goals. I said I wanted to muscle through the draft that’s been stalled at 32K words and get it to 50K over the course of my two weeks off work.

Then I got so sick with my seasonal cold that I haven’t been able to sit at my computer, knit, or even read a book, for over a week. Finally, at the last session of the year for my writing group, I was able to clear through some of the mental and digital cobwebs. I’m working on a new way of thinking about what I’m writing, that I hope will start the year off a little stronger than the way this one has finished.

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