All caught up

I've finally rewritten the first part of draft two and stitched my opening chapters together. Some months ago, I realized that I needed to delay introducing a major character. It's taken me a while to write him out, add drama, fix some pronouns . . .

But now, I've got the start, and I can just plow ahead.

That's the method I typically use when writing: start from the beginning and move to the end. But every once in a while, when I don't feel like writing, I'll pick up at a scene that seems less of a chore and start there, trusting I'll be able to work it in at the right time.

The point is this: I'm making progress.

It sounds so silly to work on a novel. Really, what are the chances that I'll ever publish it?

But as I'm sitting down, organizing my life and trying to plan ahead to make the best use of my remaining grains of sand, I keep running into this discomforting fact: Working on my fiction is my number one goal in life.

I've tried to convince myself that building my career and accumulating wealth is my top priority. But 50 years from now, if I had $10 million in assets and this unfinished novel staring at me, I would have felt like I'd wasted my life.

That's the reason I need to keep at this. Not because I've posted some silly blog or because I'm shaming myself into developing discipline with regard to my writing.

At the end of the day, my writing matters to me.

I suspect that focusing on how we can achieve our true heart's desire would give us greater energy for all the other things we have to get done.

No, we can't always get what we want, but we can usually find a way to meet those deep-seated needs on some level.

At least, that's what I think.

What do you think?