Hey, writer friends. Have any existential crises lately?

I’ve come up against a bit of a wall—a wall made of my own completely unrealistic ideas and expectations for myself—and I’ve been doing some soul-searching. A lot has changed in just the past week. I’m going to start freelancing as a copy editor again—so my “retirement” (ha!) was very short-lived. I may return to the world of publishing one day soon, but not just yet. I’ve decided not to continue work on my middle-grade novel, as I’m not sure if writing middle-grade is for me. I’m working on ways to increase my productivity as a writer… while at the same time facing the fact of who I am as a writer. Meaning: I am not a fast writer. I am not a commercial writer. I am the writer I am, and I need to embrace that and stop wanting to emulate other authors I see online. I can’t compare myself any longer. I simply need to write what I love writing. Why else am I here?

I’m also considering a modified version of NaNoWriMo this November, if my schedule is free, which will involve writing proposal pages for two new novels. They are both YA, because I scrapped the middle-grade and decided not to write the second one as adult. I’m not going to try to write a whole novel in a month. That just doesn’t work for me. But I am going to set my own goals and make progress.

So that’s where I’ve been, soul-searching through the first weeks of October. Some of it happened here, while looking out this window:

But I have a wonderful distraction coming up next week that I’ll announce on Friday. Here’s a little peek:

(Illustration by Robert Roxby)

I’m really looking forward to it and can’t wait to tell you more!