2014 In Review (kind of)

I'm not going to waste your time reading this, or my time writing this. To get straight to it, 2014 sucked. Right after midnight tolled and 2015 began, I felt new again and that my struggles from the past year were over. Although, the year did provide me with one awesome thing, and that was 50-55 pages added to my book. Over the last 3.5 years I've gotten about 100 pages written, and the bulk of it was written in the latter portion of this year.

I feel so empowered by this change of the year and will (hopefully) write each day so I can finish my book in June. I'm just going to emphasize *hopefully* because I have yet to meet a deadline that I've set for myself.

Let's rewind to May 2014 so I can prove this point.
I got so sick of not making deadlines that I made two calendars: one for June and one for July. Each was mapped out counting down every 10 days to remind myself that my time was running out to reach a particular portion in my book. I even wrote little notes along the way to guilt myself into writing. For example, at the top of my July calendar I wrote myself a "note of encouragement." It read: "A little birdie told me that you're behind. Better get at it. This shit won't write itself." I remember writing that at the beginning of June, and then laughing in July when I realized I knew myself too well. I barely made a dent in the writing I needed to finish when July rolled around. But looking back, I'm glad I wrote that because I got to work and wrote a ton of pages...about 30. Lo and behold, today I still haven't reached my end of July goal, so maybe I just had outrageous wishful thinking.

Right after the year flipped over, I changed my computer background to a picture that included a quote which pretty much sums up what I want from this year. I love the quote, I've loved it for years, and I felt it was right to smack in front of my face each time I started my computer. This is it.

Beautiful scenery with a quote so simple. The only way I will have the opportunity to run along the journey I want to create, is with "...a single step." By writing each day, I'm a step closer to that journey. But the best part of it all is that each step is a journey in itself.

This year will be the year I finish writing my book and begin the process of revising and editing. With my confidence restored, there's not much that can stop me!