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@tanyacreative

Hi Tanya!

Gracie already covered most of your questions, but I wanted to add something 😉

Wish there was a screamingly clear flashing light that would point blank say, “I want you to write, Tanya” you know. I don’t think I can come out on the other side of another failed creative venture or project after the past.

I completely get where you’re coming from. I can’t count the number of times I’ve thought that I was failing at writing or wasting my time, or anything else like that, but I have to keep telling myself that the act of writing is already a success.

See, there isn’t really failure in writing.

Every second your thoughts drift to your characters, you accomplished something. If you write one word, you accomplished something. If you get even the slightest hint of joy or pleasure thinking about your characters, you accomplished something.

Just make a tiny little goal, even if it’s just to write one sentence. If you’ve written one, you’ll want to write a second, and look at that, you already did twice as much as you planned.

And give yourself grace! If you skip a day, or a week, or a month, or stop writing for months, every word you’ve written will still be there. Writing doesn’t have an expiration date 😉

Your writing only needs to exist, it doesn’t need to be like anyone else’s. I know I compare too much, even though I’m slowly getting better at it. The books you read have been rewritten dozens of times, the first draft was probably awful.

I’d even venture to say that first drafts should be ‘bad’. The prose may be unpolished, there may be plot holes, but it exists, and that’s all that matters. If you try to write a publishable book in your first draft, you’ll only get anxious and overwhelmed. Nobody will ever see your first draft, nobody even has to know it exists. It’s only for you and it doesn’t need to do more than exist.

Just put one word in front of the other. You’ll get there, and you have all the time you need. You’re doing great, you’re doing enough, and your writing is important 🙂

Anyway, hope this helped at all 😉