December 15, 2025
That’s when I set up this WordPress site with the excellent intention of turning up for the books regardless of how prepared I felt. I must have had an especially good coffee that morning, because it’s February 17, 2026, and I have yet to turn up here even once.
Since the moment I decided to be a writer in late 2021, apart from a blissful few months towards the beginning, I have been more weightlifter than writer for the most part. Carrying around a massive sack of guilt I could self-flagellate myself with in one hand while trying to type a few words out with the other hand at the same time. Funny how easy it is for the human brain to twist genuine joy and passion into horrible self-worth and self-esteem when one’s efforts take a little too much time to come to fruition.
But in late 2025, things changed. And sometimes, things have to change for things to change. I got a puppy. Those first few months were claustrophobic in a good way. My brain no longer belonged to me. There was barely enough time to think of myself much less pick up that sack of guilt I had accumulated over the past few years. And what do you know: if you set down that sack and wander off for a while, it sort of just… disappears.
In December, I was finally feeling ready and able to get back into writing now that my pup was five months old. Surely I could carve out a few hours in the day wherein I could work without any distractions. Moreover, with the guilt gone, I could get so much more done. Right? Right?
No.
Apparently, my hands didn’t know what to do with themselves without that sack of guilt weighing them down. It took me a month to realise that I had relied on that guilt to motivate me for the past few years. The panic with which I would wake up every day realising it was now one more day gone without an agent or a contract. That terror pushed me to sit in front of my computer, sigh, and work. Whatever little that work amounted to. Now, without that motivator, I have simply been drifting most days in the past month. There is an emptiness where that sack used to be, which brings great relief and, well, emptiness.
I need to find something good to hold on to. Something that makes me smile as I work. Something that reminds me of why I started writing.
Where’s the joy?
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