Trust Your Journey

I once saw a quote from a meme on Instagram before that said to “trust your struggle”. And I filed that in the motivation section of my mental Rolodex.

The past few months have been yet another lesson of adjustment for me where I am repeatedly reminded to Trust My Journey. I left my previous job and became a contractor thinking that I would make good money and could concentrate on writing my “great novel” only to discover that I wasn’t making enough and I really didn’t enjoy what I was doing. So I had to scramble around trying to figure out a new plan. All the while, also dealing with life as a wife and mother and full time graduate student in this new city (2 years and still new to me).

I spend a lot of time being a resource and helping other people but when it comes to my own struggles, I tend to not talk about it (I do write about it) and find ways to keep myself lifted up. When you are a “caretaker” for others, there are times when you need a “caretaker” but you don’t always ask for help. Last Friday, one of my best friends posted on my Facebook wall and said to “Trust Your Journey”. I thought it was nice.

Today, though I realize how necessary that reminder was/is. There are so many valuable experiences, skills, connections and necessary people that we pick up along the Journey that are necessary and valuable to our lives.

Now, I’m not just saying that because this week I was published in my school’s annual publication, had a small feature in our monthly newsletter and won a scholarship to a week long writer’s workshop retreat in Paris, France!! All expenses paid!!

But I was reading an article today about Viet Thanh Nguyen who received the MacArthur genius grant for his novel, The Sympethizer. In the article he talks about how there was no over night success. It took him “20 years to learn how to be a writer”. For him, those 20 years paid off in a big way.

Of course, I’m not there but along with the intrinsic rewards that I get along the way, there are all of these other meaningful journey enhancing moments that keep me moving forward. Little by little. Step by step.

So let my reminder serve as a reminder for you. Whatever your dreams/goals are and whatever the obstacles/challenges you face, trust the journey. And enjoy the ride

Preptober & a couple of accomplishments

Nanowrimo will soon be here. Being the pantser that I am, last year I just started writing on Nov 1st and my efforts fizzled out just after 8700 words.

So this year, I’m trying to plan my way through (as much as can be done for a pantser like me) and I’ve rediscovered the Evernote app. I’ve been writing things down and organizing my thoughts about my plot and characters and I’m slowly working my way to an outline.

This year, I’ll be writing in the Ulysses app because I’m still not over the learning curve for Scrivener. I think Scrivener is beautiful but I haven’t quite gotten the hang of it yet. Ulysses is much easier (for me) to just jump right in.

I will also be published again for my school’s annual publication, Mosaic and I’ve written a small feature in my school’s monthly newsletter Write On!

I’m working on my courage to submit to a few places in the next 6 months. But for now, I am just gonna concentrate on this one story (I’ve changed the title 3 times already so I’m hesitant to even put it here) and winning Nanowrimo 2017.

How have you prepped for Nanowrimo? If you’d like to be writing buddy’s, I’m “Underthera”

Dreams

**repost

So last night, I dreamt a whole novel. Each scene played out vividly. Ask me if I wrote it down?

So here I am at work trying to go through my dream and write down what I can. It was a good story. I use to do that with poems during my most prolific writing period. I could be driving from work and a whole poem would sprout in my head. By the time that I got to my destination, I would have worked out all of the kinks.

Admittedly, that prolific writing period was a long time ago. But thanks to school and Nanowrimo, I feel like whatever was there is still there. If that makes sense.

As for Nanowrimo, I got in almost 9,000 words. Way short of 50,000. Now, that doesn’t count all of the papers and stories that I wrote in my two classes. I was very distracted in the month of November. It was my first time trying Nanowrimo (I’m committed to trying again next year) and I’m proud of myself for trying. I don’t even want to continue what I wrote for it, but I do plan to keep the characters, research, and story arc. I want to do something with it.

I have learned to keep writing. When I was in boot camp in the Navy, I had to jump off of a diving board. I had never done it before and I was scared. Beyond scared. But I didn’t want to go home. So I jumped. I kept telling myself that I could do it. And the whole time that I floated/swam I kept telling myself that I could do it.

I’m going to use that to push myself and continue on toward my goal of finishing my novel by the end of 2017.

I can do it.