I recently returned to a favorite pastime… sharing my word counts for my (ideally) daily efforts on my Facebook page.

It gives me a little dopamine hit and I like the easy accountability it affords me.

I also enjoy how many of my friends who are not writers are such great cheerleaders with their comments and thumbs up and hearts, showing their support for my humble little updates. Thank you! Writing is a solitary profession, so it feels nice to be seen!

Predictably, as soon as I decided to practice some accountability, work and family activities jumped into the fray.

But that is the stuff of life, right there, and I’m not despairing.

Work deadlines, at least for me, serve as intense and necessary distractions against today’s ever-leaning wall of apocalyptic current events. I could easily sink inside that vortex of political madness, but thankfully my work as a medical writer/sleep educator doesn’t allow me.

And family activities bring pleasure and simplicity. I was able to pot up some of my baby tomatoes and basil at my oldest’s apartment last weekend—her first urban garden!

So fear not, now that I’m past last week’s big production deadline, I’ll be back to posting word count updates, no worries.

Trust me, if I’m not worried, neither should you be worried. This book’s first draft is still on track for completion by September 1. Many thanks to coach Anni Kamola of The Narrative Project for keeping me on target!