My birthday is Wednesday.

I will not be giving myself a NaNo win this year. I will be giving myself grace. I don’t know what’s holding me back, but if I had really wanted to do it, I would have done a lot of things differently.

I still have goals to reach before the year ends, but 50k in 30 days is not going to be one of them. And I’m ok with that.

I have written so many more words this year than I wrote last year. I have made progress on three separate stories, recorded ideas for four new vellas, given and received feedback from new friends and beta readers, consistently posted to two different social media accounts, updated my website, and learned more about writing and publishing. I’m still a novice, but I know enough to know what I don’t know, and where to go for help. And guys, there is so much help out there.

Writing is a very solitary pursuit, so I feel incredibly lucky to have found people who are not only willing, but actively looking for ways to support writers at every step of the process. Thank you to those writers, and readers, and friends, and family, who make this work of dreams feel like something real.