One year ago, I started writing daily on my book. I heard about National Novel Writing Month, and even though I knew that there was no way I’d make it to 50,000 words in a month, even if I wasn’t starting a week late, I decided “Why not?”

I had done enough work reimagining the book at this point. Now I needed to dive in and write it. Of course, I had already written it. I had two complete drafts, written over three years, plus another draft half-way through that I wrote while I was pregnant with Elan.

But this material was old. It had been sitting on the virtual shelf for six years, getting dusty. I wrote it when I was a different person, before the intense love and sleeplessness of motherhood changed me, before I was far enough removed from my MFA program to no longer care whether the book would be “literary” enough, before I had decided to break that same material into three books and – gulp – write a series.

There were things in the old draft I liked, but it was also full of flaws that I knew about. And I was having a hard time getting up my verve to confront all those old words. I am, after all, a writer who loves writing fresh material. I love the freedom of the first draft. I get satisfaction out of editing, and I know how critical it is, for sure, but I also get easily overwhelmed by all the choices, by a fear of killing what makes a piece unique rather than making it shine. And I’m a slow editor. Sssssslllloooooowwwwww.

I knew I needed to be writing on the book again, but I didn’t know how I would manage to squeeze it into an already-full life. I still thought I might need big chunks of time to get into the character, but I also knew that was only practical on an occasional basis.

So I decided to try writing a little bit a day and see what happened, and I decided to start re-writing the book “from Word One.” I still remember the freedom I felt once I had made those decisions. They might not be the best way. They might not work. But I had decided what I was going to do. I had a plan.

I opened a document, titled it “National Novel Writing Month – GO!” and started typing.

And now, after a year of 15-minute writing sessions and 10-hour marathon retreats, of squeezing writing in around everything else and prioritizing it as first, of getting overwhelmed and taking a day off, of giving resistance the finger and writing anyway – after a year of tiny steps – I have 117,439 words.

And a lot more work ahead.

But I am lucky, because now another year stretches before me, and I know that tiny steps will take me somewhere. Tiny steps can climb a mountain, if you just keep taking them.

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