This is what a book series is supposed to look like.
This is what a book series is supposed to look like.
And these.
This is NOT what a book series is supposed to look like.
_______
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Taking a creative leap of faith and showing up for yourself and your work are much easier if you love what you do.
It seems that for every writer who loves writing – the process of writing, not simply holding a book in their hands – there is another who does it only begrudgingly. They gripe about the time commitment or proofreading or having to work through a scene when they’re not sure what should happen next. Like Barbie working out an algebra problem, they think writing is haaaaaarrrrd.
This is not unlike how many people feel about relationships. All that communicating and compromise and feelings? Yuck! Sure, Valentine’s Day is great – photo ops! – but then you have to slog through the next 364 days til it comes round again.
Are you a writer who believes writing is a grind? Do you often paraphrase Hemingway’s quote about opening a vein and bleeding onto the paper? Do you relate to Dorothy Parker’s lament that she hated writing, but loved having written?
Maybe – just maybe – you should take an opposite approach to your writing for a bit. Remind yourself that you don’t have to write today; you get to write today. Enjoy the challenge of figuring out what happens next. Marvel at the cornucopia choices you get to make – from subject to theme to character to setting – to make this quilt. Get excited about entertaining someone or sharing what you know. Embrace your creativity as joyous, fulfilling, and fun.
Don’t pour out blood onto the paper, pour out love.
Now, it’s axiomatic that love hurts. Opening yourself to the possibility of loving anything comes with the very real likelihood that your love will be rejected or will someday end. It might feel easier to shut yourself off from the possibility, but on the other hands, the rewards are unimaginable.
Love is liberating. Love creates joyous experiences and creates wonderful memories. And what is writing but an expression of love?
You must love other people enough to listen to, observe, and learn about the human condition, and the world enough to notice its beauty and the emotional resonance that differs from place to place. You must love your characters enough to portray them vividly, in all their complexity. You must love your stories enough to want to share them. You must love yourself enough to commit to your creative practice, set aside the time, and continue even when the work is hard.
Of course, we won’t love everything, every day. But without love of some kind, your writing will feel flat, unalive.
Today, take a few minutes to fall in love. If you need a prompt, pick something you already love and commit it to memory. Choose anything – a person, a piece of art, a kind of food or material, a place, a plant or animal, or a sensory experience. Describe your choice in detail. Examine why you love it. Consider what memories and emotions it evokes.
Love something and remember this feeling the next time you sit down to write.
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Here are two things I know about showing up.
If you missed my last 2 posts, I talked about taking the next steps in your creative journey and that moving forward requires action that is simple and yet not easy. I referred to it as showing up – showing up at writing events and meetup opportunities, showing up at your desk to write, showing up for yourself.
For some of us, this requires a big leap of faith, which is harder than it looks. It’s easy to look confident online, because we are sharing less than 1% of what’s really going on in our lives. But there’s a reason that every decent writing blog has a regular cycle of posts about imposter syndrome, overcoming doubt, building confidence, dealing with setbacks, and working through our blackest moods.
We’re a sensitive lot.
And sensitive people tend to get hurt and hurt people throw up barriers. These barriers keep us from fully connecting to our creativity and our community. We hold back opinions or ideas in our writing. We don’t make the time commitment necessary. We hesitate to take the next step in our career. If you’re like me, you may even feel foolish referring to your writing as a “career.”
So we hide. We may avoid future hurts, but the cost of hiding is invisibility. Learn from my mistakes: being invisible makes it really hard to find your people. You may find it hard to connect to your creativity. And frankly, it will prevent you from feeling fully alive.
It might feel safer to avoid the spotlight or to not take a creative risk or not reveal some truth you’ve experienced or learned, but this is a false safety and it doesn’t compare to the glow of community, growth, and authenticity.
So, here finally are the two things I know about showing up.
Take some time to reflect. Is there a big step you’re avoiding? Is your avoidance based on fear of being criticized or rejected? Shine some inquiry on that feeling and see what it reflects. Why are you carrying this?
I’ll go first:
As I wrote last week, I had a lot of excuses for not showing up. I blamed the voices of imposter syndrome, but also, those excuses created quite the cozy environment.
Not showing up kept me from confronting my social anxiety about meeting new people. It helped me avoid imposter syndrome, because I wasn’t trying to portray myself as anything; I was sitting at home. It helped me avoid feeling judged or rejected, because I wasn’t sharing anything with anyone.
Not showing up is easy. Not showing up is safe. It feels good not to feel judged, not to feel like an imposter, and to avoid situations where my social anxiety kicks in. But does that support my writing goals? When I avoid those feelings, am I becoming the writer I want to be? Am I making any new friends?
No.
Lean into this as far as you’re able, but only that far. Self-honesty doesn’t mean self-immolation. If and when you can, go deep. Reflect on your fear without judgment. Discover its layers. Listen to the promises your fear has made. Consider the benefits of safety. Can you let this go? If you can’t let go, can you loosen your grip on it, maybe just a little? Do it.
Then jump.
Your people are waiting on the other side.
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As a highly-motivated goal setter and a usually reliable goal achiever, I’m always curious about whether and how other creative people set goals. I wish I could be one of those laissez-faire writers who wanders through their day being as creative as they feel like, for a few hours or not. Unfortunately, I have to work for my supper, so my opportunity time is reduced by half. If I allow a few hours to pass without being creative, the day is lost.
That’s not to say I don’t have bad days or skip days. Some days I feel burned out from work or don’t feel well, common afflictions I feel are beneath me, but alas. Occasional travel days and holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving are also usually a wash. But on average, I spend a good amount of time writing every week; the exact number of hours per day may vary.
What other people say
In a post on Writers in the Storm, Jenny Hansen talked about her goals for 2026. Every year, the WITS bloggers choose a single word of intention for the year –such as Renew, Reset, or Joy – to act as their guiding star. I’ve tried that, but I never remember the word, so apparently this does not work for everyone. I suppose writing it down would help.
You’ve probably heard of SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound) goals. That approach can steer you in the right direction, but may be too structured for creative work. Writing a novel takes as long as it takes. However, it’s also good to be specific about your intentions and to ensure they are reasonably achievable.
I like setting enough goals that I have a roadmap for my year, with some wriggle room if I want to make a detour or if life gets in the way. This doesn’t work for everyone, but I need some structure or I find it difficult to decide what to do next. Worse, if I’m working only from a vague list, I will veer into busy work or research, or work on easy tasks rather than tackling something more meaningful, but difficult.
However, I add the wriggle room because I also need the space to play and the occasional time off. Also, when my deadlines are too strict, missing them feels like a bigger problem than it really is. There have been a few Januarys when I’ve missed some self-imposed deadlines and felt like I’d blown the whole year, when in reality A – I had 11 months to catch up and B – nobody cares.
In her post, Hansen also notes that most New Year’s resolutions fail for these same reasons. Goals are too vague, there’s no plan of action, and we have an all-or-nothing mindset that keeps us from continuing when we fall short.
In Atomic Habits, James Clear recommends starting small by picking one tiny, easily achievable goal – on par with making your bed every morning or drinking a glass of water at noon – and building forward. In his habit tracker app Atoms, Clear suggests defining the mindset you want to develop or end state you want to achieve, and view your actions as strategy. For example, you goal may be “Be more creative” and your strategy is “Write for one hour every morning before work.”
In her post, Hansen shares some insights she learned from a life coaching seminar: Our brains like solving problems as much or more than they like to-do lists. This is another way of saying it’s easy to get lost in the forest when we are looking at trees. A long list of tasks may be more daunting than helpful, but remembering why you’re doing them may help keep you motivated.
As with Clear’s advice above, it’s helpful to define the end state you wish to achieve as you create your lists. “Post to Substack on Sunday night” is a useful task, but it you attach it to the end state of “Be more connected to my community”, the task may feel more meaningful and less like drudgery.
How I track goals
My two big picture goals for the year are finishing the next draft of my novel and keeping up with my blog. To keep track, I have a daily word count goal and I have a schedule of what I’m supposed to write and when. The word count is simply an estimate of how many words I think I need to finish the book and write 60-70 blog posts, divided by 365. The schedule reminds me that I can’t just tap out words, I have to actually finish chapters and posts. I also can’t jump to a new project when I feel stuck. I could, of course, but then I risk ending the year with a lot of words written, but nothing substantial to show for it.
The dual goals have other benefits. Hitting my word count goal gives me a pleasurable dopamine spike at the end of each writing session, even better if I exceed it. Checking off chapters and posts – usually on Saturday or Sunday – gives me a sense of accomplishment and forward motion at the end of the week, adding motivation and momentum for the start of the next week, which can be dreary.
It also helps to break down big goals into component pieces. The novel is easy, of course – chapters are excellent sub-goals. When I open a new chapter, I start by breaking down the scenes and beats, including any new character or setting descriptions. I like being able to jump around. If I don’t have any particular inspiration for an opening sentence or paragraph, I skip to set building or conversation, whatever gets me into my writing head space.
My blog goal is posting every Monday, so that breaks down easily as well. I also work better when I have an idea of what I’m going to write before I start, so I keep lists of topic ideas or series to run through. Sometimes topics get moved from one week to another, or bumped altogether if I’m not feeling it.
I don’t know how your brain works, but my brain loves checking items off a list. Seeing the word count roll and the check marks accumulate motivates me to jump onto the next piece of writing. And if I finish my novel or work ahead on my blog, I get to – not have to – start writing something new.
Your turn
Do you set goals this way? How do you keep track of your progress?
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Last week I wrote about the importance of showing up, whether that means showing up at your writing desk or in-person at a workshop, conference, or book festival. In retrospect, I fear I may have sounded a bit glib.
As I’ve developed my blog over the past several years, a few recurring themes have emerged. Authenticity and being true to oneself is a subject I return to again and again. Sharing the occasional struggle or setback is another. Social media is rife with “content creators” publishing pretend pranks, rehearsed ad libs, and heavily edited – and ultimately fake – lives. You don’t need more bullshit from me.
I want to speak with confidence, share information intelligently, and celebrate my successes, without ever forgetting there’s a man behind the curtain putting on a face. When it came to sharing my writing journey, I promised I wouldn’t pretend. I would talk about my wins and what I learned, but also admit what I didn’t know or struggled with, and confess when I blew it. So in the interest of full disclosure:
Showing up is simple, but it is not always easy.
Creative people, including writers – especially writers, in my experience – have anxiety around their work. We put not only our time but pieces of ourselves into our stories and when one is judged, the other feels it. Many of us are naturally introverted, so approaching people can be difficult. Put those together and we can become paralyzed.
Yes, I showed up last year, and that was simple, but not easy for me. Let’s take a look at what was going on in my head:
I hadn’t published enough. I hadn’t finished my novel-in-progress, which I started after I hit a roadblock on the last project and by the way, I was about to hit a roadblock in the current WIP, which would push the finishing line out a few months at least. People like doers, not talkers. I wasn’t far enough along on my career. I’m a very late starter and should be on Act 3 or 4 of my writing career by now, not trying to get Act 1 together. I’m sure everyone else already has plenty of writer friends and colleagues, critique groups, and networking opportunities, so they wouldn’t have interest or room for one more. And what did I have to offer anyway?
It gets worse, believe me. But I knew that if I were to accomplish anything, if I were to create the writing life I believed in, something had to change.
“Fear is the mind-killer.” Dune, Frank Herbert
Step 1 is to silence these critical voices. Some people use the power of positive thinking. Some can bully their voices into submission. I let them run wild until they tucker themselves out, then make plans while they have a little nap.
During one of those quiet moments, I started with something I thought would be easy. I asked friends who write to hang out and write. Other than asking my drinking friends if they’d like to get together for a drink, I can’t think of an invitation with lower stakes. Low risk of rejection, low level of commitment, almost no fallout if the plan doesn’t come together.
I had some anxiety about Jane Friedman’s Business of Writing workshop. I’m a sturdy wallflower but ironically do better in large groups where I can fade into the background and enjoy a good, old-fashioned watching. With limited seats (12, I believe), there would be very little opportunity to hide in the back row. I might have to actually talk to someone. But I remembered I had done worse for my job and for something not remotely meaningful. If I could gladhand a horde of DC attorneys and federal government bigwigs at my company’s annual conference, I could handle a few writers around a circle of foldout tables in a barn.
When the opportunity came to ask some of those writers if they’d like to keep in touch, I still had to overcome that fear – see above – but importantly, I had already done two new things, so the third was not as scary. In fact, the point of doing the first two things was to create an environment where this opportunity might arise. Not taking action here would have undercut what I was trying to accomplish. Even then, I came very close to not pulling out that yellow note pad.
As I debated, I eventually asked myself what was the worst that could happen? They weren’t going to laugh at me or chase me to my car. Even if only one or two people had signed up, I would have called that success. Honestly, that would have been a massive win for me. If no one had been interested, I would have gone home, let the voices have their say, and added to cart until I felt better. Then I would have regrouped and started looking for the next opportunity.
All that to say, I do encourage you to show up, wherever you need to. If – like me – you find this difficult, look for ways to make it easier on yourself. Start small, with people you know. Look for places where you might meet other writers who need what you’re looking for. Ask questions: Where did you meet ______ and How did you ______? Humans love sharing their success stories and you should definitely steal their ideas.
If you hit some roadblocks, take some time to get over yourself and try again. To paraphrase, if someone doesn’t want to hear what you have to say, shake the dust off your feet and move on.
Every writer you love – from self-published to celebrity – has had this challenge, but somewhere along the way, they decided that their fear of not taking the next step was greater than their fear of taking it. If it’s hard for you, I totally get it.
But if a neurotic dork like me can do it, you can too.
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Writers and other creative people struggle with various aspects of the process, but as I watch them interact online and in my real world, I find that many flounder because they fail to master the most important skill: Showing up.
I’ve had this problem, including periods when I didn’t write at all, even though I claimed to want to. In all the years I wanted to make writer friends and build my little community, there were plenty of meetups I missed, conferences I skipped, opportunities blown. I had my excuses, but what mattered is that I didn’t show up.
Last year, I showed up – on my weekly Zoom sessions with my writer friends, at Jane Friedman’s workshop and AI talk, at the picnic table where a bunch of writers gathered to eat and chat, at Balticon where I met a few other writers and invited one to join the networking group, and at the monthly networking meetings. That sounds like a lot of steps, but all I did was say yes.
I almost bailed on every one of those choices, but I’m glad I stayed at the picnic table to pass around the yellow pad. A small thing, passing around a yellow pad, but it made a big difference in my world.
This year, I commit to saying yes more often. I say yes to making incremental progress on my WIP, to sharing info with my writer friends, to going places where other writers hang out, to talking about writing and creativity, and putting myself and my work out into the world. I commit to saying yes to improving my craft, by reading good craft advice, rewriting even when it’s a struggle, and asking for critiques.
The ride will not be perfect and I don’t know what I’ll find at the end, but I say yes to the possibility that I can be more. Life will get in the way, but I say yes to getting back on track as quickly as possible. I say yes to changing what doesn’t work for me so I can focus on what’s important to my creative health and fulfillment.
If you’re reading this, chances are that you are already showing up. Is there something else you’d like to accomplish? Are you holding back from showing up someplace new?
What are you saying yes to this year? Where will you show up?
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A few weeks ago, I gave myself a report card for my 2025 writing year, which means it’s time for new goals for 2026. I don’t always hit every goal, but posting them publicly keeps me accountable. Saying it out loud ensures that I do something to move the ball forward, even if I don’t reach the pitcher’s mound. Did I say that right?
Goals
Finish my WIP. This is a spillover goal from last year. As I wrote in my performance eval a few weeks ago, I was on track to finish a ready-to-share draft of the novel until I got bogged down in the muddy middle. I cut, consolidated, replaced, and reshuffled, and now feel optimistic that my plot can carry me through the most difficult part. If not, I have a year to fix it, plus I already fixed it once, so I have a decent grasp on what it might take to pull the wagon out of the ditch, should we run off the road again. I have a daily word count goal, but the important task is finishing, not merely adding up words.
Maintain my blog and newsletter. I closed out 2025 with about 70 blog posts and that sounds about right for this year. I’ve already drafted out topics for a good portion of them, which is half the battle. I may mix in some creative nonfiction along with the craft and creativity posts, but don’t hold me to that. We’ll file that under stretch goals.
Networking and social. I will continue my weekly writing meetups and see about adding an in-person social time, if I have any takers. My monthly networking meetup is going great and I fully expect us to continue meeting. I would like have more social time but here is where time starts to crunch. In a perfect world, I would like to have a small dedicated critique group and I should (I hate that word) spend more time interacting on my social accounts. Let’s call the first 2 solid and achievable goals and the latter 2 optimistic stretch goals.
Reading. Reading isn’t exactly a writing goal, but as the man says – if you don’t have time to read, you don’t have time to write. I have 80 books on the TBR list for next year, ranging from the highbrow – Sartre’s Being and Nothingness, a collection of seven of Joan Didion’s books, the complete poems of Robert Lowell, and a translation of the Nag Hammadi (Gnostic) scriptures – to the slightly breezier Complete Stories of Kurt Vonnegut and Patricia Highsmith’s Diaries, with some murder mysteries, graphic novels, and craft books to break up the heavy lifting. I’m very much looking forward to re-reading Ethan Mordden’s Buddies series and John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany. I could probably guess which books on the list won’t get read in 2026, but since I choose the books, that would be cheating. I should get through most of them.
Stretch goals
As the name implies, these are projects I’d like to work on, but won’t prioritize unless I blast through the more achievable goals. Ideally, these will be at the top to the list next year.
Draft book 2. I have a good outline for my next book, a follow-on novel to the WIP, set in the same world but with an entirely different cast. I don’t anticipate writing both books this year, but if I finish the first by the end of summer – eminently doable – then I could finish an ugly NANO-ish draft by the end of the year.
Stage book 3. I know what my next-next book will be, an expansion of a novella that I wrote a few years ago that needs more room to breath. If I need a break from – or between – book 1 and 2, I can work on what I call my Rationale document – a big picture review of the protagonist and the antagonism, what I’m writing and why, what I want to say, and what I want my readers to feel while and after reading the novel. It’s not quite an outline, though much of the document will find its way into an outline. Think of it as a vision board in a Word doc.
Art time. Every year I write down art time and every year I don’t set aside time to do any art. However, as you may recall, I spent a good chunk of September painting and setting up my craft room, so I have a drafting table, an easel, a kitchen table, and a writing desk glaring at me every time I pass by. I have paper. I have pencils. I’ve had some of my inks and paints so long they’ve probably gone crusty, but that’s ok. I like doodling and maybe I’ll get some time this year.
That’s a lot
And that’s ok. I know my priorities: the Top 3 are the WIP, my blog, and the networking group. The stretch goals are just that – fun things to pick at if I need a break or win the lottery. Compared to the Top 3, they aren’t vital to a successful year. I’ll report back next December.
What are your creative goals for 2025?
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The holiday season is also a good time for indulging traditions, and here’s one of mine.
I’ve gone into the background on this meditation in previous blog posts, so if you’ve read this before, feel free to skip to the end. If you’ve joined me in the last year, this will be new.
I adopted this creative exercise from the writings of psychologist Gay Hendricks, fittingly from his book Five Wishes. The process is intended to help one focus on the emotional development and success stories that would be most vital for your long-term happiness, and turn them into lifelong goals. Hendricks learned this exercise from Ed Steinbrecher, an astrologer (I know; bear with me), teacher, and metaphysician. The exercise is a simple, but not necessarily easy, four-step process.
Step 1: Imagine today is your last day of life, and someone asks you if your life was a complete success. How would you respond? We have all heard the cliché deathbed laments: I wish I’d worked less. I wish I’d forgiven more. We may also have happy thoughts. I climbed a mountain, metaphorical or physical. My kids turned out ok. Maybe your answer is a resounding yes! If – like me – you feel that your life, if it ended right now, would not have been a complete success, continue to step 2.
Step 2: Now, still imagining yourself on your last day, consider why you might say your life was not a complete success. What did or didn’t you do? Express that idea as a wish. I wish I’d had a better relationship with my parents. I wish I’d spent less time at work and more time with my kids. I wish I’d gone to college. I wish I’d learned to swim or play guitar or had travelled more. I wish I’d been more spiritual. I wish I’d had the confidence to pursue my dreams.
The specific answer doesn’t matter, because it’s personal and unique for each of us. The only restriction is that your answer should be something within your control to accomplish. I wish I’d been taller doesn’t count. It may also be helpful to focus on spiritual or emotional success, rather than something like “I wish I’d had written a bestselling book and made 10 million dollars.” We’re looking inward here, people.
For the exercise, it’s important that you be honest about the accomplishments that would have made your life a complete success, whatever that means to you. Take time to consider why this accomplishment would be important to you and why you would feel fulfilled if you achieved it.
Repeat this step until you have identified five things you wish you’d done. Five regrets and five wishes. If you have more than five, that’s fine. If you don’t have five, that’s ok too. Actually, that’s pretty good, right? We should all have so few regrets. But you probably have at least five.
Step 3: Next, reframe those regrets and wishes as positive present-tense statements. Consider what you might regret not doing today and turn it around. Here’s a paraphrased example from Hendrick’s own attempt at this exercise:
For Hendricks, this meant taking responsibility for any lack of integrity, making amends, expressing appreciations, and fully committing to loving, honest communication. If something is on his mind and he thinks someone else needs to know it, he’ll say it. If you read any of his books, you’ll find he is committed to a level of honesty that may feel off-putting if you aren’t prepared for it. Fortunately, his wife is playing from the same game plan.
Consider your regrets and celebrate that today is probably not your last day. You have time to take action. Write down your five wishes as if they are already happening. Write your success story.
Step 4: You’ve now identified the accomplishments that would make your life a complete success, and you are ready for the hard part: putting them into action. Take some time to set goals for how you will turn those present-tense aspirations into a real state of being.
Some of your goals may require time, planning, or resources you don’t have right now, but others can be acted upon immediately. Some may have concrete actions and some may require discipline and practice to develop a good habit. You probably can’t leave today to spend six months backpacking across Europe but you can start writing poetry again. You can’t heal a broken relationship overnight, but you can make a phone call or write an email. You can do something as simple as express appreciation to the people in your life who lift you up.
How is this about writing?
I’ve completed this exercise for the past few years, always around the New Year. I focus on spirituality, relationships, integrity, self-acceptance, and creativity. I then go through the meditation a second time, focusing on my creative work and goals. There’s quite a bit of overlap, but the creativity exercise concludes with more concrete steps around my writing. I’m not always successful, but I make progress. I might even forget about some practices, but then the New Year comes round again and there’s a chance for renewal.
My wishes
Last year, I was coming off a rather trying 2024, and I happy to report that 2025, while not perfect, was relatively smoother. I hadn’t set any new expectations for 2024, which turned out to be a good thing, but at the beginning of 2025 my Five Wishes were:
How did I do? I’m happy. I’m not a complete success, because I haven’t typed “the end” to my novel yet, but I’m committed to finishing. I’m ok being a slow writer, and if you count my blog – I do – then yes, I’m completing projects and putting them into the world.
Wish Five has long been my stumbling block. Every year I express my wish for community, and every year I come up empty. There are reasons – not ready, not good enough, not a good fit – but let’s roll them all up under a general category of self-doubt and fear. But every year, I express this wish again and keep my heart and eyes open for the possibilities.
This year, I’m happy to say I’m on my way to being a complete success because I am engaged with other writers and fostering community with my blog readers, my writing meetup, and my networking group. I sat on a panel discussion – two, in fact – for the first time since my mini-publisher days and got way more talk time. We’re early days still but I see a future and it’s good. This is the first year where I feel I haven’t let down the side.
My writing wishes don’t change much year to year. When I go out, I want to have a few books under my belt, written to the best of my ability, and without regard to what anyone else thinks I should be writing. I want to keep learning and freely share what I know, and I want to do all these things with a community of friends. And every year I get a little bit closer to being a complete success.
What are your five wishes for your creative life this year?
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One of my should-do-but-might-not-do goals this coming year is to interact more on my social media accounts. When I started my branding (loathsome word) project last summer, I cleared much of the detritus from my various public accounts and limited myself to following or friending folks actively engaged in their creative work. I deleted all my pop culture and political pages on Facebook and added a few writing groups that seemed both active and useful. When I log in, I want to see people doing. I want to be inspired, not mollified or enraged. This felt good for about five minutes, and then I went back to not caring too much about social media.
At its best, social media is a pathway to learning new information, discovering new hobbies or things to love, making friends, and doing whatever we call the relationship between followers and the followed. At worst, it’s a demoralizing horror show. Whether the account belongs to a friend or a social media presence, we may find ourselves scrolling through someone else’s life and comparing it to whatever drab nonsense we had to tolerate lately. Because humans tend to reveal only their best views, we are tricked into believing that everyone else is living a life of ease and fulfillment, while we are working ten hours a day, skipping the gym, watching movies alone, picking up dog poop, and planning our next staycation. Even the realization that most people are faking it helps only a little.
With this in mind, I was reminded of a blog post I shared a couple of years ago, from Tiffany Yates Martin: Measure Your Success by What You’re Doing, Not What You Want to Do. In the post, Martin touches on the above. “Realize that you’re only seeing the highlights, and as impressive as your life looks on your social media feeds, you know the interstices: the mundane, dull, difficult,” she writes. “Remind yourself that’s what other people’s posts—and lives—are too.”
Funnily enough, that is one reason why I share the occasional struggle. I’m excited to share news about my networking group or the invitation to speak at a writers’ workshop. But I also don’t mind confessing that I didn’t finish my novel this year because the middle sucked and I didn’t post for a couple of weeks because my car got totaled and I was stressed out about it. There’s a man behind the curtain and let me tell you – it’s a mess back here. There’s a reason I’ve hung curtains.
There is a converse side to social media. In her post, Martin writes about scrolling through her own social account and being pleasantly surprised by how much she’d accomplished over the past year. Rather than focusing on what she’d missed out on, she experienced a moment of anti-FOMO.
Isn’t that a great idea? Looking back at your accomplishments is much healthier than doomscrolling someone else’s life and wishing you could have a bite of what’s on their plate. It’s certainly better than beating yourself up over what you didn’t do.
Even before social media, before we had a name for Fear of Missing Out, I experienced the self-shaming that comes from watching other people engage in cool activities, reach life milestones, and celebrate accomplishments. I don’t do that anymore. Partly because I’m older and wiser. Very few people live a life untroubled by drama and disappointment. But also, I’m doing my thing. I’m happy.
My 2025 turned out great. It wasn’t perfect and it didn’t go remotely as I planned, but when will it ever? I missed some blog deadlines, but I have more readers than I did last January, and when I scroll back through the year of posts, there are a number that I’m pretty proud of. My writing meetups didn’t quite take off the way I hoped, but I found my wonderful networking group. I didn’t finish my novel, but the partial novel I have is better than the novel I would have had if I’d forced myself to keep writing based on the weak outline.
I don’t have FOMO because I don’t feel like I missed out on anything.
Celebrate what you have. Look back on what you accomplished, without counting up what you didn’t. And don’t wait until next year to reflect on what you’re achieving today. Be proud of yourself now. Enjoy the moment and live in the memories you’re making.
There’s never a bad time to stop and reflect on life, but the end of a calendar year lends itself to both a sense of conclusion and new beginnings. And even though March feels like it happened about three weeks ago, we’ve arrived at the end of another December. If, like me, you are time challenged, I apologize for breaking this news so abruptly. It caught me offguard too.
So let’s talk about goals. I like goals. They remind me of what’s important, keep me on track, provide evidence of progress, and break down big picture projects into manageable segments. Despite what NaNoWriMo taught two generations of writers, novels are not written in 30 days.
I usually set too many goals – writing and personal – but I’m good about prioritizing, so whatever time I have in a given week goes to the project on top. Importantly, I’m also not bound to the calendar, for a goal is only as good as the service it provides you. Historically, my roadmaps last at least 7-8 months, and sometimes I get through an entire year without tossing one out, but I will start fresh when it suits me. If my needs or circumstances change, my plans evolve with them, whether that happens in January, April, or August. This is realistic and satisfies the committee.
As part of my end of year reflection, I give myself a performance appraisal, reviewing what I accomplished, which goals I missed, and how and why. Did something sound like fun but wasn’t? Did it take more time than I anticipated? When and how did life get in the way? Was a project worth the effort and should I keep going or cut my losses? Where did I win? When was I most productive? What habits, plans, and productivity tools did the best job keeping me on track? Should I perhaps stop overthinking and lighten up a bit?
Obviously this last question is rhetorical.
I don’t beat myself up for not hitting every mark. I tend to set a few meaningful and achievable goals, along with one or two stretch goals, ie: projects that would be fun to do, but may not be realistic with my time and other resources. Every year, in a fit of ridiculous optimism, I write down “podcast” and every year I reluctantly scratch it off, usually sometime in the second quarter. Podcasts are fun but time-consuming, and likely would be no better at building my community than my blog. A podcast would also be a great way to procrastinate on my novel while still allowing me to look busy. I know how I am.
So what goals did I set last year and how did I do? In the interest of full disclosure:
Finish my novel in progress. This was my top goal for the year: to have a complete, ready for someone to read, draft of my work in progress. By the time July rolled around, I was somewhere between a quarter and a third of the way done, and had a clear outline of the rest of the book. A final manuscript was achievable. And then I started writing the middle of the book and the air went out of the tires. The main character floundered. Events pushed him hither and yon. Exciting things happened to and around him but the plot was being driven by circumstance, not desire. Important characters were about to disappear until the end of the story and I knew that wasn’t going to work. Rather than waste time writing more chapters that wouldn’t go anywhere, I went back to basics. I picked apart scenes, deleted and added, cut and consolidated characters, created a new inciting incident, and strengthened the cause and effect chain. I feel good about this new outline, but I won’t have a complete novel by the end of December. Fortunately, much of what I’ve already written is reusable or editable, so I will have a Frankendraft to work with come January.
Grade: B, because you should never feel bad about correcting course when you need to.
Outline my next novel-to-be. I lean into goal-setting and productivity tools because my mind tends to wander. I also have a hard time letting go of ideas when I get them, so I usually have a backup project going alongside my main work. The novel following this one is set in the same world, but with different characters, so plot ideas and storyworld elements will pop up as I’m working the main project, and this is a good place for some of them. Having a brainstorm document also gives me a break from the more intense WIP work when I need it (2000 words/hour is more satisfying than 200 words/per hour). The happy accident is that I’m applying the lessons learned from the above work while outlining this one. It was easier to spot developments that needed a bigger setup or better payoff, and places where the antagonism needed to hit harder. It’s not a pretty outline, but it’s a solid starting point.
Grade: A
Post regularly on my blog. I started the year with a goal of posting twice per week – Monday and Thursday – and I maintained that pace for as long as I could. After a few months, however, it was clear that while I loved blogging and connecting with my handful of readers, it was preventing me from working on my novel (see above re: procrastinating while looking busy). Part of my problem is that I can’t write short, so most of my posts run 800 – 2000 words. I also obsessively self-edit and proofread. So, I cut back to once per week. I did miss a few weeks, but I’m not a robot and this isn’t a full-time job. Or any kind of job. I don’t know about you, but my jobs pay money. Overall, though, I will end the year with 70+ blog articles, which ain’t hay.
Grade: B, because I don’t like missing deadlines, but eh – that’s life.
Expand my reach. WordPress and Substack auto-mail blog posts, but I also decided to start a newsletter, because for most people it’s easier to give me an email address than it is to remember to visit a site, sign up for yet another social account, and subscribe to a publication. I wisely decided to keep it simple, with an opening first-person message, a brief recap of what I posted on the blog, an occasional short book review, and a parting song. I set a reasonable goal of sending a new email on the first Sunday of each month and so far have published every month.
In June, based on advice from Jane Friedman, I moved my website blog to Substack as a way to increase my visibility. I don’t have a large readership, but it’s larger than what I had in January, so I’ll take that as a win. Substack also made it easier to post to social media, which I find tedious, and my follows are inching up. Go me!
Grade: A; extra credit for joining Substack
Find my tribe. Throughout my life, I’ve had intermittent success making friends with other writers. I had exactly one writer friend in college. I had a wonderful collective in California, which I stupidly traded for a start-up theater group, the less said about the better. I spent a number of years in the wilderness before finding some writer friends in western Maryland, but life eventually took us to different locales. More recently, I have tested out various critique groups, but never found one I fully vibed with. COVID ended a bunch of them. I embrace the DIY aesthetic, so when I failed to find what I needed, I knew in my heart I’d have to create it myself.
First, earlier this year I invited a bunch of my writer and wannabe writer friends to join me online for a weekly silent writing session. Show up, shut up, write. While many expressed initial enthusiasm, only a few actually managed to complete step one. We intrepid few continue to meet every Wednesday to keep each other company while we work. I’m not always in the mood, but I show up anyway, because I know the others are waiting.
In May, I attended Jane Friedman’s one-day intensive The Business of Being a Writer workshop. I don’t have grand designs on becoming a bestselling novelist or making a significant income from my writing, but it’s also important to me to have writing peers with whom I can share ideas, information, feedback, and encouragement. As I wrote to Jane before the event: I’m so excited to meet 12 other writers with the oomph to take this workshop!
My expectations were far exceeded. Jane gave each of us detailed, personalized feedback on our websites, blogs, and social media profiles, as well as tons of advice on how to align our writing, public personas, and online tools to create a brand. I went into the day planning to ask the other writers if they’d like to keep in touch but I chickened out.
Fortunately, the next week Jane gave a follow-on talk on how generative AI is affecting the creative community. After the presentation, while everyone was happily munching sandwiches and cookies, I set a yellow pad and pen on the table and asked if anyone would like to keep in touch.
Pro tip: Plan your networking around snacks.
I was not sure how or if anyone would respond, but everyone at the table added their name and email address to the list. Thanks to my RBF it probably didn’t show, but that was my first What the Fuck moment. I was prepared for disappointment, but now I was going to have to actually do this thing I’d proposed. The second WTF moment occurred during our first online meeting when 8 out of the 9 writers joined the Zoom session. As I wrote at the time in my monthly newsletter, I could invite 9 people to my funeral and not have 8 show up. This was actually happening.
Six months later, we have shared advice on book cover design, manuscripts, queries, networking, and blogging, and developed new friendships and community around our creative work. My presentations at the Manor Mill Writers Workshop were a direct result of the networking group, as the event founder Katie Ritter is also one of us. I have been so accustomed to going it alone that I wasn’t quite sure where we’d go together, but I’m deeply grateful, if slightly terrified, every time we meet. I named the group email list Masterminds, but don’t tell them. I’d hate for it to go to their heads.
Grade: A (Gold stars for everyone!)
Set aside time for drawing and painting. I like to draw and paint. I’m not good at either of these things. This is actually part of the attraction. I’m not a good artist, I have no designs on becoming a good artist, and I have no ego attached to the results. Unlike writing, I can enjoy the process of creating a crappy drawing while not caring too much about the outcome. I will proudly show off my off-kilter still life but I would rather die than show someone a piece of writing in early draft form. Also, drawing exercises an entirely different portion of my brain, the part that takes in shape, texture, and color without necessarily needing to name them. It’s quite relaxing.
I didn’t do any drawing last year.
Grade: 0, but it doesn’t matter.
So, three As, two Bs, and one zero that doesn’t matter. Not bad. As ever, there is room for improvement, but overall, this was a pretty great year, especially for finding my people. Everything else is gravy.
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