I haven’t written in a while because I haven’t known what to say.

I got hit with a major doubt spiral and never really emerged. The last few weeks, I’ve tried to get back on track, to follow my own advice (what a joke), and… well… I haven’t.

But I’m not giving up. At least, not all together. But I am hitting the pause button on the current project and experimenting with some alternatives to see if anything can get the juices flowing or move me in the right direction.

Giving up and starting over is a perennial attribute of my creative process. Some random posts and reading over the last couple weeks have shown me that both Veronica Roth and N.K. Jemisin (go read her books NOW) have talked about starting over on projects, or abandoning them even with several thousand words behind them. Obviously, if I just keep abandoning projects and never finish anything, I won’t be successful like these two incredible authors. But agonizing and beating myself up over having to let go isn’t helping either.

I don’t want to talk too much about what project(s) I might be starting now, since knowing me, I’ll be abandoning it tomorrow.

But I am always filled with hope. 🙂

And I didn’t want to abandon this site or this blog, because I will be triumphant and this moment of failure will be a part of the story of my success. I can only hope it’s uphill from here.

Yay optimism!

-J