9. What do you do when you're not making progress, your story looks bleak, and you've been stuck for weeks?

Hi. So, this is what I remind myself when I get stuck like this. Writing is a purposeful act. This means, all the hours I spend writing at my desk in my little room—whatever that struggle looks like—are steps towards an accomplishment. An example of this is a picture I saw on Facebook. Margaret Hamilton, NASA’s lead developer for the Apollo program in 1969, is standing next to a tower of thick books she wrote by hand that is as tall as she is—all the computer code that was required to get a human to the moon. Which means, Margaret spent many hours in an office, without a computer, painstakingly writing with all the details and struggle, all because of her purpose, the moon. So I ask myself, what is my moon? What new established circumstance inspires me to go through with the writing, taking the hard steps on the journey, day in and day out? For me it is a person reading my story, and seeing an aspect of life in a new way. Or a person reading my story, and finding an oasis from the stressful daily grind. Or a person reading my story, and just having a good laugh when they haven’t been able to laugh all week.    

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