In my drive to get Kern back onto the tarmac after a looong flight (well . . . long for me; Air-E-Tate doesn’t offer Angharad’s Transstellar Service!), I missed a personal milestone. At the tail end of September, after just over three years on the site, I posted a story chapter containing my millionth word (not counting blog posts and comments). Near as I can tell, the magic word – appropriately enough – was “Carmen,” so I used her final picture for this blog posting rather than my own. It was the need to tell her story, after all, that got me through my writing drought and pulled me past that milestone.

It took me less than a year to hit 500,000 words; the second 500,000 took more than two. As I’ve discussed with several authors, it often feels like each individual word I write is incrementally more difficult than the one before it. Maybe it’s the worry that I’ll be repeating myself; for sure, I don’t want to write variations on the same story over and over again. The more one says, the harder it is to say something new.

So when I see Holly Snow posting that she’s done, I feel her pain acutely. I get it. This writing stuff can be hard. It is among the reasons why feedback from readers is so important. Were it not for a timely comment from AlisonP, I would have stopped writing stories after around 68,000 words.

This is such a wonderful community. Thank you to everyone here who has supported my writing, for your clicks and kudos, for your PM’s, and especially for your comments. Thank you to the amazing authors who have freely given me their time as beta readers, editors, sounding-boards and – occasionally! – therapists. And thank you to Erin, Mel, Piper, and the whole team that holds this precious space for us.