A Little Perspective

When I started this blog, I intended it to be a dialogue about my writing as well as my finances. Over time, I mostly stopped talking about the writing, which I think was a smart decision. Writing about writing makes me incredibly self-conscious, and feels awkward. Today I'm going to take a moment, however, to talk about what I've accomplished with my novel, because in many ways that journey correlates with my financial journey.

I just found a draft of my novel from this time last year. In that draft, I was still laboring under the delusion that I would use the first draft of my novel as a framework, and 'bulk it up' for the second draft. I laughed when I looked at the amount I accomplished since then. Only about 70 pages of that old draft survived. I wrote almost 400 more pages between then and now.

I get down on myself when I look at the novel because of all the revisions it needs, but I just need to remember how I ended up with that massive manuscript to begin with: one page at a time. I wrote almost every day. Sometimes it seemed like a snail's pace, but realistically, those small additions created a giant product. It's like my debt. It never seemed like much, but a few dollars here and there swept $12,000 away and put me (mostly) back on my financial feet.

I think I need a Do-Over Day. I have these occasionally. Sometimes I get overwhelmed, not just with the things I need to do, but with my accomplishments. Not only does the journey ahead seem incredibly long, but it also seems impossible to top last year. I feel like I need to do even better, when in reality, if I did half as much this year as I did last year, I would still being doing great!

I can't get in my own way. I need to just shout Do Over! and put everything back in perspective. In this journey, it's still just one page, one dollar saved, one step at a time.