Hey guys, welcome back! It’s the weekend and feeling more Fall-like here in the northeast than the last weekend of May. (Which is just fine with this Fall loving girl!)

Over the last two weeks, there’s been a few milestones happening in both my life and those around me. This weekend alone, both my mother and one of my closest friends hit milestone birthdays. (You know, the kind with a zero at the end of the number?) Of course both act decades younger than they are, so there’s that. 😬

The other milestone that happened was that I have actually cut over 100,000 words in my manuscript! With the average submission word count requested being between 80-130,000, I’ve literally cut an entire book from my book.

It boggles the mind that I wrote well over 400,000 words in a matter of months, let alone now trying to edit those words down into a story that makes sense after those cuts. But the fact that I’ve done this much makes me realize that I’ve done a lot more work than it feels like I have.

Let’s face it…when doing a task for a good length of time, after a while it can feel as if you’ve been standing still and not making any progress at all. When I decided to run the numbers after the fourth edit was complete last week, I was in shock. However, I was also so happy that I decided to run those numbers. I’ve been so frustrated thinking that I’m just not getting anywhere at all. Turns out, I really have been making a difference. Even if it’s just been 10 words here, a paragraph there. Inch by inch, I really have been productive. It was the first time I let out a deep breath in a long time.

Now on my fifth edit, I stalled a little again when another story came into my head. Thankfully, this is not just my own problem. I’ve been in touch with other authors who deal with this as well. (Always good to talk to others who are on a similar path for just such support.) So I started writing that one down, am now six chapters in and now that it’s cleared my head out a bit, I can now get back to the task at hand. I’ve worked too damned hard over this past year+ to just abandon this book.

I also have another completed book that I need to edit. That one, oh boy, that one means so much to me and I would love to get that book out as soon as I can. But just as this post has become a stream of ramblings, imagine what is inside my head and why I can’t do just one thing at a time.

Dealing with attention issues is a part of my journey. Thankfully I’ve started to work on that to help my focus and try to compartmentalize what I need to get done. Is it working? Eh, still trying. At least I’ve been able to recognize what needs to be done and how I can take the steps to continue down this road I’ve started on.

In the meantime, I thank you for letting me use this as a kind of therapy session. If you take nothing else from this post, I hope you take this…keep going. Even if it feels as if you’re not making progress? You are. Sometimes even the smallest steps can move you forward.

And that is where I will leave you for today. Until next time folks…cheers!

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If you’ve gotten this far, I thank you so much and will see you soon! 🌸