02. Show Up for Yourself
If you’ve seen any of my recent TikTok posts, I’m been committing myself to write every day since January. Now, I have missed a few (a lot of) days, but the purpose wasn’t just to do a challenge but to practice showing up for myself.
As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been wanting to release The Bonai Chronicles for years now. I’ve put it off many times, as writers often do, due to mental breaks, family, and really just life. But for the past year, I’ve been working tirelessly, trying to keep this story at the front of my mind so I wouldn’t forget about it or go lax in my discipline in trying to get it finished.
Hence, the writing challenge.
It helps to have a goal and an accountability partner, of which I have both. My goal is to have my manuscript ready so I can send it to literary agents by this year. And my accountability partner is just wonderful. We’ve been helping each other become sharper in our writing and staying disciplined in our craft.
No one else is going to write this story for me. This story isn’t going to reach the audience it needs to if I keep ignoring it or don’t put in the time to create it. In short, staying disciplined really, really, sucks. But the beauty of it is that it can look however you want it to look. As long as you are showing up for yourself.
For me, that means working on my story every day. Even if I missed some days. And when I do, I don’t beat myself up about it anymore. But if I took that day to expand some worldbuilding, fix a few plot holes, gathered inspiration, or even wrote 20 words, that’s a win in my book.
Currently, I’m only at 25k words, but I’m proud of those words. I feel confident in the direction my story is going because I’m creating the guideline for what my success looks like.
And soon, once this book is finished, I can hand it off to someone who, like me, was searching for a story to feel represented and wanted to get lost in a world where people may do bad things to you, but if you find a select few that will ride for you, you’d be in good hands. The hope and the message we desperately need today.