Baby Steps Are OK

I was reading a book by Thich Nhat Hanh the other day and one of the quotes that really stood out to me was this one:

"Each day you only need to take a few solid steps in the direction of your goal. Each morning, you rededicate yourself to your path in order to not go astray. Before going to sleep at night, take a few minutes to review the day. 'Did I live in the direction of my ideals today?' If you see that you took two or three steps in that direction, that is good enough. If you didn't, say to yourself, 'I'll do better tomorrow.' Don't compare yourself with others."

They say things always come to you exactly when you need them, and I know that this was something I really needed to read. Because I often find excuses for why I can't write. Or, instead, I don't write at all because I know I can't accomplish very much on that particular day. More often I think I just procrastinate. And if I keep doing that day after day and year after year, I'm going to wake up in the winter of my life and realize I've accomplished nothing.

My manuscript is now at 111 pages and nearly 33,000 words, and I've written several thousand of those in the last 24 hours thanks to this particular quote. I've decided that it's important to check in with myself every day, just as it says to do, and I've also decided that it's also important to allow baby steps to be ok.

There are many days where I don't write at all, and rather than allowing a day to pass without writing anything, I've tried to just write a line or two. Or an idea. Because then I feel like I'm still working toward a goal even on the days when I don't have much to give. And this is the accountability part of the quote. The part where you keep yourself on track, and you forgive yourself when you fall a bit short and don't even make that minimal effort.

Following this practice has also reminded me how much I love to write when I actually do it. Looking back now, I can't believe that I stopped writing for two years. I can't believe I even thought that perhaps I wasn't supposed to be a writer at all, and perhaps I don't even like it. I do like it. I just got off track.

So thank you, Thich Nhat Hanh, for showing me the way again.

Incidentally, if you want to read the book, it's called No Mud, No Lotus: The Art of Transforming Suffering. It's a gem of a little read.

I'm Getting Published

So I got a little distracted over the past week or two by health woes (and health wins) and just work in general. Sometimes it's so hard to focus on the things I want to do when I have to focus so hard on the things I need to do, like pay bills, try to keep my writing business going, cook and clean, caretake my elderly cat, etc.

But today I got pulled back in a creative direction when I learned that one of my poems was accepted for publication in an upcoming literary anthology.

Say what?

Yep, I'm getting published.

This is the first win for me, although admittedly I haven't tried very much so far. I've submitted some work to the New Yorker twice, and I also submitted my poetry to one other literary journal, but otherwise I haven't done anything with my writing aside from slogging my way through trying to fix it, or letting it sit dark in a drawer, or sending it into oblivion in cloud storage.

This particular poem (you can read it here) I had only submitted to one other place - the other literary journal I mentioned above - and it was accepted after just those two attempts. I'd say that's not at all normal. Although perhaps this publication didn't have very high standards.

But isn't that the thing we always tell ourselves? That really, whoever liked our work must have not known what they were doing anyway. Or, likely they didn't have enough "good" work to choose from. It's all part of the story we tell ourselves to ward off future peril when we feel like we couldn't possibly be good enough to succeed in what we're trying to do.

I've been pretty successful in straying from that line of thinking today, mostly because I'm really excited to see my name in print somewhere. But as the excitement has worn off this afternoon, the doubt has crept back in. Which I think is not unexpected, although my job is to divert it elsewhere. Because I seriously don't have time anymore to live my life in self-doubt.

Now that I have this win, maybe I'll get back to my work. I have a lot that I want to write about but I just struggle to find the energy and focus after dealing with everything else. But I know I'll get there. Every time I stop setting aside time to write (or otherwise don't accomplish much with my personal work), I tell myself that I'm just taking a break. And breaks are ok. As long as it's not a permanent disconnect and I do, eventually, come back to it.

I'll be back soon.