5/10/25

I didn’t realize until I began writing this that I started this page on my site nearly two years ago. The purpose of this space was to be of a different style, like a diary entry, and more frequent.

It was also to take some pressure off myself from the ideas I had that were more time and craft intensive while still getting the satisfaction of publishing, with the simultaneous element of showing myself in a different light.

Well, this is the sixth post in over a year and a half, not quite how I intended it. Guess I am really good at putting pressure on myself, even when I set something up to take pressure off.

Lesson learned, I suppose.

At least in theory….

In the last month, two stories that I have had on my mind for quite a while both came to fruition. As in, now is the right time for me to start on them. Life experience and time distance have a lot to do with why now is the best time for me to begin them.

It’s also because they are both going to take a long time and take lots of research and interviewing, so I needed to be in a good place with my self confidence and self belief. The only way for me to get to those places is over an intentional period of time.

I’ve wanted to do projects like these for years, but I knew I wasn’t where I needed to be to at least begin something of a large scale.

These stories are both nonfiction, and are totally different from each other. I’ve decided to be working on them concurrently because I know I will burn out on a singular project.

Being a huge fan of excellent nonfiction books that take years to not only complete but get it right, I have asked and listened to authors who have done it best, either directly or when they’ve been interviewed.

It’s no different than the fiction authors I’ve admired, it’s just that nonfiction projects like the ones I am immersed in require more than imagination for the story, and a wider variety of skills, at least for me.

All the information and advice I have accumulated over the years has given me some good insight into how I would at least begin a long term project, and what would not work for me. I don’t need to know everything all at once, nor is that realistic. It’s just about doing the best I can with what I know and what I have, with a keen eye and open mind to adding to that knowledge and my skillset.

Each project will require me to reach out to hundreds of people, and hopefully most will converse with me. That’s out of my control, but my effort is in my control.

I’m excited and scared, yet overall ready because I know how to deal with and render my inner critic stupid. It’s a balance between being hard on myself without being too hard or too gentle. Even though just a month in I am wishing I was further along than I am, I can’t let that get in the way of the small wins along the way. And I won’t.