Well it is NaNoWriMo, after all…

You could say I’m inspired, at the moment, which is why I’m breaking my blogger silence before anything “big” has happened.

I’m talking about publishing, of course.

I’m still working on beginning that journey, doing more than dipping my toe in that vast ocean of chance. But I write to whoever is out there now to say yes, it is possible, yes, you can do that “both,” and so will I — a day is coming when we will do more than just write, and talk about writing. We will put our money where our mouths are, and get our work out to the audience it deserves.

In the meantime, we let ourselves be inspired to keep going with what we’ve got.

I recently re-watched the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth Harry Potter movies, after seeing “The Crimes of Grindlewald” in theaters last weekend. Whatever the Potterheads have to say about any of the films in the franchise, these few reminded me what it means to take risks with what you have and turn the previously unknown or unexplored into something unexpected and amazing. We have more to work with than we think, and when we realize that, we have all the motivation we need to keep putting pen to paper, as it were.

This is National Novel Writing Month, and I’ve written half my goal of 8,000 words…which was previously 10,000 words, and 11,000 before that, and 20,000 before that.

Shameful, I know, right?

Wrong. It is OK to adjust. Have I written less than 20 words in a single day, some days this month? Yes. But that’s more than I was writing every day before November 1st, and it’s more than I’ll write on other days this year. I know. The point is, I’ve contributed something to at least one of my novels every day for 22 days in a row. And that is significant.

So find your significance. Every day. Write when inspiration hits. Don’t wait. Watch, listen to, and read what you love — whether that’s the Harry Potter series or the score to Pirates of the Caribbean or classic literature that’s always been on your “To Be Read” list but never made it into your hands, soak it up. Remember why you started.

And keep. Going.