Look, at the risk of getting out of my lane and into life coach territory, I think it’s important at this shift-into-the-second-quarter point to pause and look at where we’ve come so far this year. Personally, I’ve fallen a little short of where I hoped to be by now. I set out in 2023 with the intention to write and post weekly, giving myself the flexibility to tackle a range of subjects and support on common writing challenges without flooding your inboxes. But then life happened.
Since the end of January, I’ve been navigating grief and loss while also trying not to lose momentum on building this early-stage business so I can find those who need me far into the future. That’s a lot. And it’s meant that I can’t always get the writing done, even when I deploy my own suggested best practices and try to write at least a little bit every day. I can’t think coherently when I’m chronically exhausted and emotionally empty, and I certainly can’t offer useful advice about writing when I feel like I can’t get the writing done for my own needs. Thinking about writing isn’t, of course, enough to make it appear in front of me without doing the work.
At this point, I have to let go of the writing I haven’t done. That’s hard. I want to be a better version of my writer self and I want to have been more consistent than I have so far. I still hope to do better–maybe by the halfway point of the year, I’ll be able to look back and reflect with satisfaction on the resources I’ve created. But I’m still grieving, and I’m still overwhelmed, and I recognize that I might still not quite hit my mark.
So here’s this week’s advice: give yourself some space. Writing is hard, and for most of us it’s less fun than other tasks that feel (and often are) just as or more important. Even writing a few sentences a day is progress that gets you closer to whatever your writing goals are at this point. When life is making it hard to think, sometimes writing can cut through the fog and help you see what it is you need to say. And other times the writing just won’t get done when you hope it will, and beating yourself up about missing that goal will only make it harder to face the next one. If you haven’t finished something from January at this point, stop thinking of it as from January and start considering how it might fit into your second-quarter planning.
I have lots to say this year, and I play to say it. I might post some bonuses as I finish out some of those drafts I didn’t have the energy to fully tackle before this month.
Something Polished 