This post will be short mostly because I just spent the last hour working on my novel, which wouldn’t be significant if it weren’t the first time I’ve touched it in nearly six months. I’ve always had lofty goals for my writing, but have had a very hard time keeping up with them. When I first started attending my writers’ group a year and a half ago, I was optimistic about resuming writing again. This blog is one of the results of those efforts. But I also wanted to resume work on several projects that I had let sit gathering metaphorical dust in my computer files. The first was a finished family advent devotional waiting to be shopped around to publishers. The second was what I affectionately call my dance novel, also known as “The Pointe.” I started this project four or five years ago under the guise of writing what I know. Meanwhile, I changed jobs, bought a house, renovated said house, got pregnant, had a baby,quit my job, nursed and cared for a new baby, took care of a husband suffering from clinical depression, got pregnant again, and had a miscarriage.

During those years I managed to write almost 20,000 words, which felt small compared to the task of completing a novel. My husband took up writing again last fall and actually completed the National Novel Writing Month challenge. He is still working on his fantasy novel, which when completed will probably be close to 100,000. I’m very proud of him, but disappointed in myself. But he recently challenged me to shoot for 300 words a day. This seems small but in a year I’ll have written over 100,000 words. Even if my novel isn’t that long, or it doesn’t take me a year, at least I’m working towards a goal again. So I’m back in the saddle and hoping I can keep it up.