A Yearly Reflection

I forced myself to sit down on November 1, 2025 and start writing. I wanted to finally complete a NaNoWriMo challenge. I've been setting them for myself for years. I'd sit down, with a full plot line ready to go. But I couldn't write. I couldn't think.

It wasn't because I didn't have the ideas. It was because I was horrified about the reception of my words. I was worried that people would read into anything I wrote, even if it was supposed to be fictional. I've seen too many artists go through the scrutiny and surveillance and it ruins your ability to be creative. So does "waiting".

There's never going to be a "better time" to start. There's never going to be "more opportunities". 

You're NEVER GOING TO BE READY. 

So, why wait?

I wrote Nashville Summer last year for NaNoWriMo. This year, I'm probably going to be writing book 15 in the series. I think it'll cap around 18, but I don't know. I'm not policing my creativity anymore. I can work with a bunch of garbage. I can't work with nothing.

Since November 1 2025, I have written and published 17 books. 2 of them are non-fiction. One of them has been written 13 years and just needed to be polished.

So many of my projects have already been written in my head. It was getting it out that was the problem. But the more I write, the more I realize, no one cares. Now that can be a depressing sentiment that I'm wasting my time for no reason. I don't give a shit. I just want this stuff out of my head. The more I write, the more nothing happens except the one thing that always needed to.

Writing has turned into the therapist I always needed. I write stories from 16 years ago and I can see why I was making the decisions I made at the time. I can look back and see we missed a diagnosis that could have really changed the way I viewed my own actions. I thought I was crazy and out of control. I was. But I was literally in a state of psychosis, best handled by professionals. All I had was me. I'm my own best friend and my own worst nightmare.

That's the way it should be. We need to be our own heroes and our own villains too. We need to encourage the changes that need to be made and be gentle when we fail. There's a balance to living that so many people haven't really figured out yet.

I feel like The Series is shedding light on me to me. I couldn't be more grateful. It's helping to see the patterns and cycles that keep repeating. It's helping to see that I've been in darker places and made it out alive. Not without scars, but I'm alive.

God-willing, I'm going to stay that way and keep doing what I'm doing.

As human beings, we have exactly one thing unique from everyone else. Our perspective.