My creativity has languished the past couple of years. I am in a busy, stressful, and sometimes overwhelming season of life, and I am a firm believer that there is no way to “do it all” or “have it all,” no matter what the internet platitudes may tell me. Randi Zuckerberg has said that there are five areas in life we regularly attend to, but we can only focus on three of those areas at any given time. They are: family, friends, work, sleep, and fitness. I’m not 100% sure which umbrella my creative writing shelters under, but I know it’s been largely ignored.

That is, it was ignored, until I picked up my pen on a whim and decided to give the horror genre a try—something so wildly out of my wheelhouse that I saw it as more of a mental exercise than anything else, until I really got into what I was writing and found myself enjoying the exploration. That led to me believing it was worth submitting to a call for short stories for a horror anthology, which led to it being accepted, and now here I am, making time for writing once again.

Does success breed inspiration? Perhaps. Or maybe it’s that I opened a door I’d locked, and once I turned on the lights, pulled back the curtains, and let some fresh air in, everything began to make sense again.

In my career, I write every single day. But it’s a different kind of writing, and though it works many of the same mental muscles it’s certainly not the same as creating a world and people and events from scratch.

Which brings me to NaNoWriMo 2023, which I’m participating in (in earnest) for the first time in several years. I’ve moved to a new area so found the local NaNo group, and I’m already leaning on them for accountability (whether they’re aware of it or not!). So far I’m two days in and right on track with my word count, trying my hand at a longer, novel-sized horror story that I hope to have ready for an editor some time next year. Wish me luck and enjoy the posts this month about my progress; this blog is also going to serve as a point of accountability and I’m looking forward to getting my thoughts on writing out into the world again, as well.

I’m a writer whether I’m actively working on something or not. But it sure does feel better to say so when the ideas and words are flowing.