I’ve said it a million times: if I hadn’t committed and promised to share a chapter a week here, I never would’ve finished my novel. When I published Chapter One back in April, I had no idea what I was doing. Six months later, by October, I’d written “The End” and learned more about storytelling, discipline, and myself than I ever expected.

Through the writing process, I ran the full gamut of emotions—cried a lot, laughed a lot, got angry a lot—and through it all, I healed, grew, and evolved… a lot.

I likened myself to Diane Keaton’s character Erica Barry, in the movie: Something’s Gotta Give, every time I talked about my writing process, because it felt so accurate.

And even though I’m still probably many, many edits away from being “done,” I’ve accomplished something I’d been hoping for, thinking about, and trying to do—for years—and it feels so good to be on the other side.

I guess this is me saying—you can do it too—if you’re willing to sit through the discomfort and take the emotional ride that sometimes feels so scary, you’ll think about quitting a thousand times. But if you stay on that ride, you will finish your book. 😊

This video: The Art of Discomfort speaks to the amount of discomfort it takes to create, to write, to begin and to commit—all the way to the end.

🎀 Oh, the excuses we make. . .

The gap between wanting to write and actually writing hits me every day. It’s funny—I often feel the same way about reading. I spend so much time romanticizing the idea of lying around with a book in my hands and so little time actually doing the thing I claim to love most.

My writing process feels almost identical. Every day, I fight a small battle with myself—and though the writing eventually wins, it never spares me the uncomfortable middle space where my brain throws up every excuse and resistance imaginable. Even though this is literally what I look forward to doing all day.

Below is a quick outline of my own random thoughts as the discomfort of the writing process moves throughout my day.

The Build-Up (Morning to 2 PM)

• I spend my entire morning anticipating my writing session—excited to start

• I enjoy my slow morning coffee, breakfast, etc. then power through tasks and chores with writing as my reward

• 2 PM is my sweet spot—early enough to start that I haven’t burned out—late enough that my eyes are properly awake and won’t strain after an hour of screen time.

• I’ve learned that I (and my eyes) burn out quickly if I start too early, and then the remainder of the day is lost, so patience in the morning is a virtue, and knowing this allows me to stay in the moment and not rush the process

The Beginning (When I Finally Sit Down to Write)

• I open my document (Word doc or Substack post)—excited—ready

• Sometimes it flows easily, especially with personal/stream-of-consciousness writing—aka, a blog post

• Personal posts tend to be easier to edit as well, less pressure overall to be perfect.

• Continued work on the novel or specific chapters often take a different turn

The Shutdown (The Real Struggle—if I’m paying attention)

• Today’s example: editing Chapter 6 of “Everything She Never Had” (converting my early chapters to past tense after originally writing in present)

• I made it through THREE sentences before hitting a wall

• Physical discomfort kicked in—I couldn’t focus, had to get up

• I went to the kitchen—grabbed chocolate-covered almonds (my allowed daytime chocolate snack because protein + dark chocolate—obviously) then I sat back down at my desk, ready to start again, now distracted by chocolate almonds on my desk and the hand to mouth action—leaving me with one hand—and now I can’t type.

• Finish snack, as I continue to read through, trying to skip the harder parts in order to keep going.

• Now I have to get up and wash my hands—but first, more almonds.

• Repeat the last three steps again

• Finally sit back down and now the sugar high has my body bouncing and even less able to focus—but I push through it momentarily

• I get up again and do a random task, possibly jumping jacks or squats to release the energy—or I let the dogs out, rush them because “I have to get back to work” obviously, and now it’s THEIR fault I can’t get my work done 😆

• Finally return to my desk and begin—again.

The Pattern I’ve Recognized

• The moment I walk away, I realize I’m avoiding discomfort (for whatever reason) possibly my brain isn’t ready to focus even though I am, maybe I’ve already read a sentence three times and can’t figure out how to make it better even though I know it’s incorrect. There is something that stops my progress

• This will happen multiple times before I can finally sit for an hour+ stretch

• The cruel irony: this is the ONE thing I’ve been excited about all day—literally WAITING TO BE READY to sit down and start

• When I finally sit down: “discomfort, discomfort, warning, alarm, warning, alarm, alert, get up, do something else” but I always return, sit back down, and try again until the discomfort stops. Eventually, I can focus and feel like I’ve made progress with my words. I spend 2-3 hours in the zone, writing. Then get up, get ready and head out for an hour walk + errands, return home, feed dogs, eat, procrastinate—and within a few hours, I’m back at it again. I feel the discomfort but lessened now (because I've already gotten 3 hours in earlier), it’s more of the “I’m too tired to work” excuse, but I grind through it (most nights) and then have another writing session between 7:30pm and 11pm - and sometimes, on a chapter release night (when I was releasing one a week) I’d continue writing until it was finished around or after 2am.

My Reflection

• It feels hard and overwhelming, whether it’s “just” a rewrite/edit of something already written, a first draft, or a regular edit/pass on the work

• Sudden anxiety, antsy feelings rushes through me

• This happens most days (not every day, but most)

• I have to push through these “yucky feelings” aka “the discomfort” to get to the actual focus/flow state—the best feeling—and make progress on the work, equalling a sense of accomplishment and confidence that I can do it again tomorrow and that am working towards a larger goal and am a person of my word, even though it’s hard—and then I wake up the next day and go through it all again.

You Don’t Need It All Figured Out to Start Writing

The biggest lesson I learned while writing my novel was that no matter what I thought the story would be in the beginning, middle and even in the end, everything changed along the way—and I mean, EVERYTHING. I allowed it to unfold naturally and figured it out as I wrote it.

I had an overall idea of my story—an arc and a journey I wanted my main character to go on—but I didn’t know much more than that when I started. At one point though, I thought I had a pretty good idea of what it was going to be and it turned out completely different. However, the underlying message and my main character’s journey remained the same. By publishing a chapter at a time here, it forced me to get creative with how I moved forward. Instead of going back to change things when I hit a wall in the plot, story or character development, I had to think of something new, and that, in an of itself, added so much more depth, interest and adventure—and I could NOT have known that ahead of time—especially when I wrote my first chapter.

It’s times like that when I felt less like the creator of the work and more like a vessel it flowed through.

You Don’t Have To Know All Of Your Characters Before You Start Writing

In 2014 I wrote up to three chapters of a book called Everything She Never Had, and then I stopped. I left it behind thinking one day I’d come back to it. In 2016 I began a new version of it. . . but also stepped away from it about five chapters deep.

In 2022 I thought I’d pick it up and start writing it again, but it was quickly evident that I still wasn’t really ready. Even though I wrote daily on my blog for almost fifteen years, I’d easily tell myself that I wasn’t ready to write a book.

Instead of writing, I bought a journal and started hand-writing an outline of the story and trying to name all of my characters. I plotted stories that would never get told—spent hours coming up with names I’d never use. This felt like a fantasy land of a fantasy land. I’d never written fiction before, so I got caught up in the romance of it. . . and although I started, I never finished.

I started reading Joseph Campbell’s: The Hero with a Thousand Faces again—and even though I knew the monomyth, I convinced myself I didn’t know enough to write yet and began watching YouTube videos on the hero’s journey and the writing process—taking pages and pages of hand-written notes in that same journal I bought—INSTEAD OF WRITING my book.

The truth is that once I finally committed to writing my novel, I really only knew one character: my main character. I had a secondary character in mind, but didn’t have a name yet. . . and that was it. Every single one of my other characters came to me through the writing—as I was telling the story. I’d need a way to move the plot forward and voila! a new character was born. I’d come up with the name on the spot without overthinking it. There was no lengthy process involved. I created a new character and then kept writing. It was only in and through the many rewrites when and where my character would get his or her personality.

Prep-Work vs Diving Right In

This circles back to the beginning. . . Do you need an outline to start writing? Not really. Does it make it easier? Probably, yes, but it depends on how you work. I like to think about it like painting a room. Some people like to spend hours on prepping the space—laying the plastic out, taping every line and window and doorway before they start. Others just grab a paintbrush and can of paint and get to work, cleaning up mistakes along the way.

It depends on where you want to spend your time—in prep-work or in post-work. But even when do all the prep-work first, you still make mistakes that you have to go back and fix or re-do, not to mention other changes you’re not anticipating (like better ideas that pop into your head as you start writing)!

For me, the edits are the best part. I believe the story reveals itself in more detail, the more edits and passes you make. . . because how can it not? You know the entire world better once your mind has lived it for a while, so naturally ideas flow that you couldn’t have known when you started.

If you’re a planner and a prepper—then stick to what works for you. BUT if this idea of prep-work keeps you from getting started (or is the excuse to keep you from jumping in), then SKIP IT and like I said earlier, allow your story and characters to unfold as you go.

Get Your First Draft Out Of Your Head As Quickly As Possible

Get the first draft down as quickly as you can—don’t get caught up trying to perfect it—just get it out of your head! I took mine one chapter at a time, mostly because my brain was already wired that way from years of blogging. Each chapter became a post. That gave me boundaries—a frame to work within—and it made it easier to compartmentalize the sometimes daunting task of WRITING A BOOK. Because the idea of completing something on that scale sounds so far away. So start small and get it out and onto the page in any way you can.

The funny thing about chapters is, you never really know how long or short they’ll be until you’ve written them. The point is just to get it down. The real writing happens in the revisions—I know that’s a famous quote, I just can’t remember who said it. The hours and hours of revising can feel overwhelming. But once it’s out, the process actually gets easier. Revision feels like designing a room after you’ve built the house—you already know it’s the kitchen, now you get to decide what kind of appliances you want, what color hardware, flooring, lights, etc.

The first draft gives you the bones. The rest is decorating—refining, rearranging, and discovering new ideas you couldn’t have seen until they were on the page. That’s why getting it down quickly matters. The longer you wait, the more you overthink it and the easier it is to give yourself excuses to not do it. But once it’s there, you can finally start shaping it into something beautiful—which is far more fun, in my opinion.

Your End-Game Excuses Keep You From Starting The Writing Journey

Another thing that kept me from writing was the end-game excuse:“Well, I don’t have a publisher, so why do it? or What would I even do with it when it’s done?”

Worrying about the end before you’ve even begun is the surest way to never start. If you’re looking for an excuse, this is the best one. It gives you an out before you’re even in.

That’s the trap of the end game. You talk yourself out of starting because you’re already worried about how it’ll end. The truth is, most people don’t have a publisher when they start writing. That comes later—if it comes at all. Having a finality for your work shouldn’t be the catalyst in making it. If you want to write or be a writer, then you must WRITE. Relieve the end-game pressure, and just do it for fun. . . and see what happens.

Ironically, I had a publisher at one point and still never published a book.

Back in 2012, when I was blogging, a publishing house approached me with a book deal. I gave them my concept, they said yes, and they paid me to write it. Though it was fun, I wasn’t passionate about that project—I just thought, Cool, I’ll be a published author. But right after I turned it in, the company changed management, and they dropped my book. This is to say, that even though I had been paid for writing, had an official “end-game” goal, which I’ll admit, did motivate me to write, I didn’t do it for the love of writing and in the end, it never got published.

Give Yourself Grace

I became a better writer in the six months it took me to write my novel. Now, let me state for the record, that this was my first novel and first work of fiction. I made many mistakes, and am currently in the long process of rewrites and edits. So even though I technically finished within six months, much work still needs to be done in order for me to even hand it over as a manuscript that I am proud of.

I think it’s also safe to say that the book I started in 2014, 2016 and even in 2022 wasn’t even close to what it became as I started and finished it in 2025. This is because I didn’t know then what I know now—I couldn’t have written the story I wanted to write THEN because I hadn’t experienced the life that led me to get to this version of it. When I look at it like that, I relax and know that I am right on time—that everything happens in divine timing.

So maybe I wasn’t procrastinating all those years, maybe I was still researching (through lived experience) what I needed in order to understand my characters and this story in the way I really wanted it to be told—which, like I said, couldn’t have been done until now ☺️

Starting is the hardest part. . .

But also. . . staying committed is the hardest part.

I am a firm believer of just starting. . . and if it doesn’t work, start something else—start again and again and again—until something clicks. I made this video last December—before I even thought about writing this novel—and since then I started and finished and it hasn’t even been a year. There’s a bit of confidence that comes it starting and staying committed to something that feels so big, to keeping your word to yourself, even if no one ever sees your final product or project, it’s a nod to yourself, and sometimes that’s all we need. 🤍

p.s. if it was easy, everyone would do it. Keep going.

Click below to read my novel. . . and tell me what you think!

A Few Recommended Books:

• The War of Art

• Year of Yes

• Relentless

• The Big Leap

• The Hero with a Thousand Faces: The Collected Works of Joseph Campbell

A Few Recommended Articles:

• Hello Writer: Finding the soul of your writing

• The Emotional Journey of Writer’s Block

• Do writers have to be ‘relatable’?

• 5 Writing Tips From Simpsons Legend John Swartzwelder

Happy Weekend, Lovecats! 😻

. . . and happy November as well.

xoxo …love, Maegan 💋

I’m a bit blocked. So, I’m writing this instead of my novel—hoping that by doing so, I can break it down, figure it out—and unlock my next chapter. PLUS, it buys me a little time, eases the pressure and gives me a chance to build my dream character so my story can unfold naturally.

I’m struggling with writing Chapter 17—which, I think is abundantly clear by now. So I’ll get right to the point, before I procrastinate any further: I have writer’s block… and it’s not because I don’t know what happens next in the story or that I’m stuck on the plot, it’s because every time I try to write a scene or a line of dialogue, something inside of me seizes up. My emotional discomfort spikes, my frustration builds, and more often than not, I—a. get up and walk away, b. immediately find something chocolate to stuff into my mouth, c. break down into a full-fledged ugly cry, or—d. all of the above.

I’ll give you a hint: it’s d. all of the above.

After a little digging and a lot of self-reflection, I realized that I’m having a hard time writing this part because—unlike the past chapters—I have so little real experience to draw from. And that knowledge makes me deeply, madly and unexpectedly, uncomfortably—sad.

This is my writer’s block.

Let me explain:

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It’s been incredibly easy (for me) to write scenes with the brother character (Max) because I have a brother and our relationship is very similar to how I’m writing the character and so it’s easy to write dialogue, personality traits, etc. It’s also incredibly easy to write dialogue—arguments and even fights for the Chris character, and describe his behavior to a T—as well as the emotional journey that Sam lives, because I lived it too, in a way. Although emotionally re-living some of it has been challenging, I can write them more easily because I KNOW these characters deeply, and I’m drawing (emotionally) from those real experiences.

In other words, it’s easy to write characters when I know them inside and out (although entirely possible to still not get them quite right or miss certain aspects as well)—I do my best.

I love writing Elise’s character because I love her, and while I know her inside and out, she’s not based on a real person, I’ve made her up entirely—she makes me smile just thinking about her and somehow that alone, allows me to write her easily.

Now that it’s time to write Finn (the new love interest), I’ve been struggling—a lot. He’s a nice guy, one of the good ones. And unfortunately, aside from the “brother,” the “gay friend,” or the purely platonic “guy friend,” I have zero real experience being in a romantic relationship with someone who embodies those nice guy qualities. None.

Insert writer’s block here.

That thought hit me like a ton of bricks last Friday as I began writing Chapter 17 and I’ve been struggling with it and with writing, ever since. How can I write an honest and loving character if I have no idea what it feels like to be loved like this?

I know how to write chemistry—how it feels to want or desire something, someone—and to be wanted. The longing, the tension, the connection. But real love and intimacy is beyond my expertise, beyond my knowing.

I don’t even know what it feels like to have a father who loves me, let alone a partner, boyfriend, or husband. I know brotherly love and the love of male friendship. I know lust disguised as love. I know objectification dressed up as love. I know dangerous love—abusive, scary, somewhat thrilling love. But I don’t know what the intimacy of true love feels like. There have been times I thought I knew, but it turned out in the end, I was completely misled.

Real love has escaped me, and every time I sit down to write, I’m confronted with that fact. I’m trying to give life to something I’ve never received, never had or held, never truly understood. It’s like describing a place I’ve never been—never seen with my own eyes, just from an idea… the sadness comes from knowing I’m reaching for a truth that has always lived outside of my own experience. I can write longing to be loved but I’m blocked beyond that.

Once, in couple’s therapy, I admitted that I had never truly felt loved for who I was—currently or in any previous relationship. Instead of even trying to be the person who could give me that or show me love, he used it against me in future arguments. The evil smirk on his face, the glint in his eye watching me break as he said it was proof—he got a kick out of my pain, twisting the knife so it hurt in a new way. That is the kind of “love” I know. That is the kind of love I can write, realistically, and with honesty but, it’s not real love, it’s abuse.

It’s easier for me to speak these truths, to write with this kind of vulnerable honesty, than it is to write a male character who can love without conditions. A love that isn’t transactional, objectifying, or one-sided. A love that isn’t selfish.

I think it’s probably something we all long for—even those who’ve known it. But I can only speak for myself.

I’m not sure it’s that cut and dry for me. I’ve never had a problem leaning into shame, nor with writing honestly. But the thought of never having a lived experience with a good man has triggered shame all the same. Writing him honestly feels difficult, because how can I truly write someone I’ve never known?

I have to build him from scratch—the man I’d want to know. The man with the qualities I’d admire, respect, and love. Someone emotionally intelligent yet still believable, who treats me kindly, gently, and with love? That’s probably a challenge for many women who suspect such a man even exists—even though we’ve been fed fairytales through the patriarchy since birth—not one man has ever lived up to, or even close to it—for me, anyway.

And yet, even in fiction, I want him to feel real. I want him to be real. I want him to exist. That edges toward fantasy, sure—but we have to believe, at least a little, that there is a place, a time, a reality where emotionally mature, kind, compassionate, respectful, loyal men walk this earth. Because if not, then that might be the truest cruelty of all.

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In order to get into the mindset of where I left off with the Finn character, I had to bo back and read Chapter 14 ~ Irreplaceable. I remember at the time of writing it—feeling like I rushed the ending because I was insanely uncomfortable while writing it. I brushed it off with the excuse of being tired, but it has been tugging at me ever since I finished it.

I had no choice but to go back to it, revisit it and see if it might trigger something that would unlock my writer’s block and help me with this character. So I read through it and I was right. The first half was well thought out, and (as I remember) much easier to write, as emotionally charged as it most definitely was, I got through it because I know that evil character inside and out and I know how Sam (my main character) would react to it, because of my lived experience.

As I said above, I don’t know the Finn character, I have no real person to pull from, no-one and no-thing to draw inspiration from—I have to make him up entirely—and because it was so easy with “Elise”, I hadn’t anticipated it’d be so difficult with “Finn”.

I’ve been watching Lessons in Chemistry on appleTv and it’s a really great show—like, really great, I think anyway—and when I reached episode seven (don’t worry, I won’t give anything away) something happened where I thought to myself, I wish I could go back to the beginning… And to be honest, I’ve felt that way with many great shows or series’ that took me on an emotional adventure that I wanted to relive but couldn’t because I already knew what would happen… Anyway, when I asked myself this time, why I wanted go back to the beginning of this particular show—when I hadn’t even finished the series (although I have now)—I realized it was the love story. I wanted to go back to the early episodes when the couple was falling in love because it made me feel happy—and I thought—this is what I’m trying to write. More specifically, this is what I am having such a hard time writing.

I want to write love—the way my characters fall for each other. The moments where they’re discovering the sweet, endearing, even vulnerable parts of each other. Those little things that make you realize you’re seeing someone’s heart for the first time.

Even in my worst relationships, those moments existed in the beginning—but for me, they weren’t real. They were bait. Lies—that I didn’t uncover until much later—too late. And that’s where I get stuck. Whenever I try to write tender dialogue, some part of me jumps in: No one says that. That’s a lie. He’s lying. It’s too cheesy.

Which means I now have to build, from the ground up, a man I’ve never met. And it’s slow going, because every time I try to shape him, I’m forced to face the truth: I’ve never been with someone who has treated me well. But I want him to be real, to feel real—so I have to know him inside and out to be able to write him well. And I need a little more time to do that—to figure that out, to figure him out—so that I can have a well-nuanced and realistic character that doesn’t feel like a fake, falling out of some fantasy romance.

🤮 no thanks

And because I’m writing this in real time, I wanted to share this aspect of the process—something you wouldn’t really see or have any idea about if I wrote a book and published it and you only saw the final product.

There’s something about writing this novel in real time, sharing as I go, that is a little risky. I don’t have an editor making sure my story and plot line up or even pointing out grammar and spelling and punctuation mistakes. Of course I will make mistakes, there have been many! Of course I’ll need to go back and possibly rework or rewrite something I’ve already published—but I think that’s part of the fun, part of the story of—writing the story.

It’s one thing to imagine storylines, events, and vivid visuals—taking you, the reader, and me, the writer, to fantastical places. But writing emotionally honest characters with depth, who feel real, is a different challenge entirely—at least for me. Now I’m starting to see how much my own walls, my own resistance to opening up to new love, might be standing in my characters’ way too. If I can’t access that vulnerability, how can they?

So maybe writer’s block is about shame and honesty. Or maybe it’s about fear—fear of diving into our deepest desires, of facing our truest selves, of daring to ask for what we really want… and being willing to receive what we’ve never had.

What started as confusion and frustration has turned into something bigger: a realization that my inability to write this love story might be the same as my inability to fully trust that I can live one. And maybe—just maybe—the character I’m trying to create in my novel could also be the person I’m trying to manifest in my real life. I guess I’ll just have to write and see.

Thanks for supporting me and following my journey here 😊

xoxo …love, Maegan 💋

• Read: Everything She Never Had (because guess what? I finished!)

Apologies for talking about my hair for the first few minutes—skip through it to get to the meat of the video episode 😊 ALSO. . . Come As You Are videos are for paying subscribers only, however, the written part of most of these posts are free. Enjoy! xo

Happy Weekend, Lovecats!

I just realized I could post here without sending it to your inbox! This feels like good news to me because part of the reason I don’t share as much as I’d like to hear is because I worry that sending too many emails is annoying — because it is! I get it. Even I don’t want daily emails or even multiple emails per week! But now I’ve learned that I can post without sending it to you, HURRAY! This means that I might post and then share a link in a weekend post, like this one, to other things I’ve published, in case you want to read them, but it will be your choice, rather than getting inundated with emails. ☺️

I’ve also been posting to my NOTES more, which is fun, like a personal Twitter/X/Threads situation, but only for Substack. If you’re on the desktop version, you can see NOTES on the navigation bar along the top on my home page, if you’re in the app, I can’t help you, because even when I try to use the app on my phone, I get a little lost. BUT I really like the Notes section here.

I’m still not quite used to this Substack space, even though I’ve been actively posting on it for almost a year and a half—I’m still learning, I’m still trying to figure out how it all works and still searching for others to follow and read here—who are NOT celebrities. After all the annoying years of social media, this feels like a breath of fresh air, like going back to the roots of blogging, the beginning when it was so fun and new. But somehow, I get a little lost here still… and now I’m just repeating myself. 😝

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• Have you read last week’s chapter of Everything She Never Had?

Chapter 16 is my favorite so far! It’s the funniest, as I mentioned in the video, and I laughed out loud numerous times while writing it. What I didn’t know about writing fiction, was how vivid the story would look inside my head. While I do write from some true/actual events, which I can pull directly from memories, the fictional parts are so fun to write and so vivid in my mind, that they may as well be a memory! I don’t know why I’ve put off writing fiction my entire life—but I explain in the video how I first started writing this novel ten years ago, when I was 38—and how it ended up catapulting my divorce, though I didn’t fully realize it at the time.

When I didn’t have the experience I needed to write it, the Universe would send a tsunami my way—flip my life upside down, eject me into something new. And if it still wasn’t coming through the way it was meant to, it would happen again. On repeat. Until I was ready. I guess April 2025—when I was still 48, almost ten years to the day after my first attempt—was when it finally actualized.

I’m not gonna lie, this notion has been blowing my mind for the last few days.

And now, whether by choice or circumstance, I’m isolated—granted the time, space, and focus to become the vessel this story needs me to be.

The isolation that I felt nine years ago, the summer when I turned 40, after my separation and during my divorce—the second time I started writing and stopped around 30,000 words deep—I couldn’t take the void. The darkness and uncertainty in between the future me and the then-present me, was too painful to sit in. So instead, I poured myself into opening a business, dove head-first into a chaotic relationship, and lived a ridiculously stressful life—one that, ironically, in hindsight, gave me exactly the experiences I needed to reach this point, where I can finally spend my days writing and creating the way I longed to for nearly eight years.

The complexity and contrast of the last ten years—having and not having, being and not being—has forced me to dig into myself in ways I never could before, cracking me open enough to finally be the vessel I wasn’t then.

This is usually the part where future me would look back and realize what a gift it all was, how perfectly it lined up. But present me is noticing it now, in real time, as it’s happening—and that feels like a gift on so many levels, not to mention a quiet kind of growth and self-awareness I’m still learning to trust.

• I also feel like I’m getting so many ideas lately, new downloads of things I want to do, but that I just don’t have the time for. . . but then I wonder, is it that I don’t have the time or is it that I don’t have my days scheduled in a way that would allow for more time spent doing these new things? I’m not sure. It could definitely be a time-management issue—almost like when you get a new job and everything is so hard until you get the hang of it all and then suddenly, you can get a week’s worth of work done in three days.

I’m certainly spending more time than I’d originally imagined writing the novel, which I am enjoying more than I’d originally imagined as well! In fact, it’s bringing me SO MUCH JOY—it’s the only thing I want to do and on my mind 24/7. AND the fact that it is taking up as much time as it is, proves to me why writers often need to go off to their “special place” to write; their mountain cabin, their beach bungalow—in a movie, anyway—if they’re doing it full time, every second of every day is somehow leading to their story—at least it is for me—and like I said multiple times above, I am finally in my “special place” and space— mentally and physically—to do just that.

• Don’t forget to check out IN THIS ISSUE—August’s deep dive is Seventeen Magazine, September 1967—and although I already feel a bit behind, I’m having so much fun in the ‘60s after spending a month in the ‘80s

Have a wonderful weekend Lovecats!

xoxo, …love, Maegan 😻

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I remember noting the day specifically because it was two years to the date we had moved up the mountain.

A month later, I cut my bangs.

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Okay, MOST TIMES, I overthink things.

Like I am right now… a metaphor for most of my life but for this, I’ll be referring to my writing goal I set on Jan 31st, just 19 days ago.

I often feel like I don’t have all the information I need to start something, which is not usually the actual issue, but more of an excuse because I don’t have a starting point from which to jump.

A starting point could be a thought, a first sentence, a title, or an idea that brings me immediate clarification and then I start - writing, in this case.

IDEA: Start… and then finish. SMILE 😃. WOW. That feels good. I’ll do it again.

But when I feel like I don’t have a starting point, I go on a hunt for it. I search for it. I look for it everywhere and in everything. I watch 20 youtube videos, listen to songs I think might inspire me, read things associated… as if more research is going to give me the inspiration and the A-HA moment I need to get started.

Sometimes it does, but usually this is just some sort of excuse to procrastinate because I’m afraid to write (or do the thing, whatever the thing is).

Maybe I think the thing will be hard, so I avoid it (even though generally when I do that, I turn the thing into something so much larger than it actually is, when if I just did it, it would have taken all of 4 minutes to complete -we all do this, right?).

Maybe I think I don’t have the idea fleshed out enough to write about it or that writing it will take too long.

Maybe it’s 100 maybes… but mostly it’s fear. Fear of vulnerability. Fear of feeling the emotions. Fear of being misunderstood. Fear of making a mistake. Fear of looking foolish. Fear of… fill in the blank.

Fear. It’s usually fear. It’s ALWAYS fear.

Here are my fears, i.e. negative voices in my head trying to get me to stop:

• I’m having no impact.

• People are in way worse positions than I am in, how can I share my story when I have so much privilege?

• I stopped writing every day because I felt like it was too much instead of remembering why I was writing every day and now doubt has crept in.

• I don’t have anything to say.

• I have too much to say.

• I’m saying too much.

• I’m not saying enough.

• No one cares.

• Who cares?

• I’ve been reminding everyone (and myself to share because you never know who you are reaching or helping) and I’ve blocked myself from sharing.

• Who am I to think I can help anyone when my life is still not where I want it to be?

I’ve written about ten first drafts (posts), then closed them up and not finished, edited, published or shared them. I am days behind, but not really. But as long as I’m writing every day, it’s okay, right?

NO. It’s not okay.

I said I was going to do something every day and the days that I don’t keep my word to myself are the days that I feel less confident, I feel doubt, I feel not enough, I feel like I’m betraying myself. In essence, I feel shitty, angsty, cranky, bored, searching… you know the feeling.

The days that I don’t keep my word to myself also make it possible - maybe even probable - that the following day I won’t keep my word to myself either and then BOOM! I stop entirely and all the hard work is gone. All the work I’ve put in and the changes I’ve felt are gone because now I’m back to “feeling” like the person I was before I started this… so what’s the point? I just sabotaged myself back into my comfort zone of a past life and version of myself that I don’t like - but it’s way easier, right?

In the short term, maybe… but in the long run, it’s not.

Just a few days ago I felt like I had changed in so many ways that I’ve been wanting to for years... working so hard to get here and I changed in a very short period of time, all because I set a goal and then I stuck to it.

And as soon as I noticed… actually, as soon as I acknowledged it, I started slacking off. And then one day became two and excuses crept in and then those excuses turned to doubts and then into fears and then into my complete seizing up and wondering if I should even continue.

Part of the reason it took as long as it did for me to start this project, set this goal, was because I thought I needed a reason, a “WHY” or a passion or purpose behind it, which after a year and a half of searching, I still did not have!

And I started anyway… and then it felt really good, and then everything felt like it was actually coming together and changing and moving in directions I have been hoping for… and then I blocked myself.

The main purpose now is to prove to myself that I am worthy of keeping my word to myself. When I do it with small things, every single day, then I feel like I have the confidence to do with with larger things and trust that I am making the right decisions about even larger and much more challenging things. If I allow for even a moment of doubt to creep in, fear is sure to follow, and so I’m going to stick to it every single day, no matter what goal it is, because you know what? It works.

xoxo …love, Maegan

photo source: Emily Henderson’s Mountain House Party!

If you know me even a little bit, you’d guess that the two shows are Friends and Sex and The City. I’ve seen them both so many times that I can close my eyes and know what’s happening in the scene just by listening to the dialogue. More with Friends than SATC, but still… Does anyone else do this? NO, just me? Okay…

WELL… at some point recently, while trying to figure out what might motivate me to write again, I thought it could be a fun idea to go back to the beginning of SATC and use all of Carrie’s writing prompts within each episode through all the seasons as MY writing prompts and write MY perspective on them, because why not?

I never did it, but since I don’t want to talk about the snow anymore I’m going to do it now… So, without further ado, from Season 6, Episode 3:

I’m actually going to alter it just a bit… Can you get to YOUR future if your past is STILL present?

I think the short answer is - NO. If you are still “present” within your past, it’s not your past yet. Even if you are yearning for something new, you can’t get there until you let go of the past emotionally and/or physically move on.

Carrie is referring to relationships in the episode, since that’s all she ever writes about, but in this case, “the past” could be anything… a job, a career, a friendship, a move to a new location or of course, a relationship. I think the question really relates to anything in your present that you are unhappy with or intuitively know will not be part of your future, yet you hold onto it for dear life, afraid to let go.

Why? Why do we do this?

Fear? Fear of the unknown, fear of making the wrong decision, fear of it all turning out worse than it is now, fear that we can’t do it, fear that it won’t be better… fear that it won’t make us happy.

In the midst of writing this, I took a break and hopped onto Instagram and this image above was in my feed and I think it fits perfectly into this…

Moving on, away from your present/past whatever it might be, is scary because it’s unknown, unless you have a safety net, the risk might be greater than the reward.

For instance, it’s not always smart to leave your current job until you have another job lined up. You don’t move out of your house until you have another house to move into. Unless there are unfortunate circumstances that force you out of these situations and can’t be helped, if you have time to think about your next step, you can create a safety net:

1. Decide you want a change in your life

2. Make a plan

3. Take steps towards creating that new life

Or you can… Forget Everything and Run.

I think getting clear on what you actually WANT your future to look like might be the only way to actually walk into it. And only then will you truly be able to leave your past behind. It’s easy to point out what we don’t like and then complain that life isn’t what we want it to be, but if we don’t have a vision on what we DO want our life to be, then we find ourselves stuck in the same present/past life for years… forever even.

If you are still emotionally attached to your present, person, place, or thing, you cannot get to a future that doesn’t include those things.

If, as Aristotle says, “We are what we repeatedly do” then our current present and past life are merely a culmination of our habits, our rituals, our distractions and our patterns - and the only way to get to a different future is to change our daily habits and patterns. We can either act as if we already embody our future (or the future version of ourself that we want to be) or actually (act) and do something different each day, consistently until the habit becomes part of who you are, ultimately creating a new version of yourself and a new life.

As an example, I am currently working on this now. I have envisioned the person I want to be and while I can embody “her” I also have to become her and for me that means setting a new goal (writing here every day), showing up with discipline and doing it - no excuses.

While I am a pretty good visualizer, I’m much better at actually taking action, putting in the work, showing up every day, discipline creating a new drive and inspiration which leads to actions aligning with words, gaining a new confidence in myself and proving to myself that I am worthy of the new future that I want.

To reiterate: I am becoming her one day at a time, one new habit at a time, consistently showing up for myself every single day, proving to myself that I deserve the future I envisioned. This is the “Face Everything and Rise”, possibly the harder road, but this road will eventually give me the strength to step away from the things and fear holding me to my past/present and lead me into the future that has been waiting for me to show up.

Which road will you take?

xoxo …love, Maegan

This was well before Instagram’s quick captions took over and before people expected anything substantial from blogs. It was also well before any of us truly knew what we were creating when we did start our blogs and it was a time when we all read each other’s blogs and and commented and became part of a community of women who were all there for each other right on the other side of the screen.

Then social sites started popping up like Twitter and Instagram and we were all there too and we mostly still are. But the writing changed, attention spans changed, and so many blogs had become less personal by then and more like magazines with hired writers and creators, pumping out mass posts because there was so much more content we had to compete with.

Instagram took over and bloggers became influencers and then influencers became celebrities and we all had to compete and have perfect feeds and it all lost that sense of authenticity and community it had in the beginning. I might be presumptuous in saying this BUT, I don’t think I’m the only one who is missing the long-form or depth of topics or personal connection you can’t get from scrolling. The mindlessness of it all has gotten a bit well… boring I think.

I felt proud that I was able to truly turn all of my hobbies and random skills into a very lucrative career that didn’t really exist prior (while learning so much more along the way), but the only way we earned income back then was with sponsors and while that all seems normal to everyone now, it was not as accepted in the beginning and the more sponsors I had, the less I could be myself and the more it felt like work, the less I enjoyed doing it.

While Instagram has its downsides, I still enjoy the quick creativity it offers and the way I’ve been able to keep in touch, even if just peripherally, with many of the original bloggers from that time. Since 2007-2008 I’ve watched women get pregnant, have their babies and even send their babies to college! 16 years is a long time to stay in touch with people who have never met in real life, but we’ve all done it in a way that feels like we actually know each other and THAT is truly something for the future history books.

But I miss the writing. I miss the honesty and I miss being a part of something larger than algorithms and captions and endless scrolling. I want to write again and I want to be real again. I want to exist again in a way that feels like I’m part of something bigger without also having to share a photo (which I will still do on my OG blog hopefully). I was in my early 30’s when I started my blog, just married and just starting to try to get pregnant and build a family… and now I’m in my late 40's, divorced, no children and wondering WTF is next!?

And you know what? Even though my situation may be different from yours, I don’t think I’m the only one who is feeling this way… I don’t think I’m the only one who feels like life was supposed to be different than it turned out or the feeling that I thought I’d be somewhere else “by this age” or just utterly confused about what life is now, what to do next or what direction to focus my energy.

So this is my vow, in the most long-winded explanation ever, I am going to write here every day starting tomorrow, February 1st 2024 as a discipline (like I did when I set this goal in 2008 or maybe it was 2009 actually) and hope that it creates a certain motivation and inspiration that I have felt lacking in my life along with a confidence that my voice and my POV not only adds to the collective in a positive way, but also helps at least one other person not feel so alone or maybe inspires at least one other person to do something they have been putting off as well.

This is my attempt at accountability and to force myself into something new and different, but the same, and this is it… for a start. I might make some posts private for paid-only subscribers because I want to be able to deep dive in any direction and I think knowing that it’s “safe” will help me to be more vulnerable and open. If you’ve followed me at any point or read my blog over the last 16 years, you’ll know that I don’t hold back much, I get down and deep into the feels, but there’s a lot I’ve held back in the last 7 years and I don’t want to feel like I’m hiding anymore.

So here I am, almost 50 (I’ll be 48 in June) starting to get hot flashes in the beginning stages of peri-menopause, talking about whatever I feel like and hoping to ignite my passion again for creating and sharing in a way that helps and inspires others in some way and motivates me into a new consistent creativity with my old space, loveMaegan.com as well as whatever else might present itself.

I hope you come along for the ride - xoxo …love, Maegan :)