#JuWriSoMos Reflections, week 15

How do I even begin this reflection…

Fifteen weeks ago, I set out on this adventure with a group of other folks who all wanted to write more, get back into a writing project, and check in with themselves more. We started with writing five minutes a day, and I honestly thought I was going to be so irritated by the challenge in that first week. Five minutes. What can one actually accomplish in five minutes?!?!?! I’ve seen it before, the usually an overly perky person talking about how “in just five minutes” you can melt away pounds or clean your entire house or some other really obnoxious promise to do something super amazing, just imagining it right now hurts my brain. I really started this challenge afraid that, among other things, the challenge was going to be me, forcing myself to not forget to write every day, and being irritated because I wasn’t going to get anywhere.

Reminding myself to trust the process and keep showing up, each day it became more clear that this was exactly what I needed right now.

And as I am facing the fact that tomorrow is the last day of this challenge, and am preparing emails to go out to those who joined me on this little trek, I am amazed. I am humbled. And I am grateful.

Because of injuries, I cannot write with a pen or pencil for long periods of time without pain. I could handle five minutes, but I knew that the longer times would end up being focused on how my hands were feeling instead of what I needed to put down on paper. So I opted to do this challenge on the computer instead of in a paper journal. One of the advantages to this is that I know how many words I have written in my writing space…

And if I keep this practice up, I know that I can meet and exceed my writing goal for 2022. It blows my mind that in about 18 hours, I have written over 56,000 words. It blows my mind because I have tried to meet the 50,000 word goal of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month – which is in November) on at least 7 occasions, and I have never been able to get past 15,000 before November was over. 18 hours, spread over 15 weeks…and I have exceeded that goal. As someone with ADHD and CPTSD who struggles to stay focused and complete things to the point that writing a short book (like 25 pages, 7500 words, short book) took me ten years to do…? When I say blows my mind, I mean that.

Anyway, I am sitting here reflecting on this challenge and allowing myself to really feel this goal being met. And it’s overwhelming. It is a little bit scary, but it is also so exciting and energizing to me.

Tomorrow I get to share some things with the folks who participated in this challenge with me, and I am super excited about that. Then as suddenly as this challenge came to its end, it’ll be February, and the practice will be up to me to continue. For right now though, I want to just celebrate the win for a bit. Even if its just for a few hours.