And sitting here, listening to Celtic Women and the laughter and chatter of my family-- I don't think I have. I don't think I'm missing it.

It's been a bit over two thousand years, now, since Mary and Joseph arrived in Bethlehem and the greatest gift of all time was given to the world. Two thousand years since the angels appeared to the shepherds-- the poor, ordinary, nothing-special-at-all shepherds-- and sang praises to God.

"Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people."

Two thousand years later, I'm still feeling the joy-- the result of Christ's birth. Two thousand years wasn't enough to kill the joy or change the meaning of that gift.

Before Christ's coming, the only hope for salvation was following the strict Jewish law and offering frequent sacrifices at the temple. Before Christ's coming, a personal, close relationship with the Lord was only for the few, the favoured-- people like Enoch and Elijah. Before Christ's coming, it was ridiculously hard for a Gentile, like me, to find favour with God.

But that all changed when Jesus was born.

"For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord."

Jesus was born to rescue mankind from their sin and suffering. Jesus was born to fulfil the law and the prophets as the one true Messiah. Jesus was born to save us. No wonder the message the angels brought was of joy and peace and good will!

Christmas is a celebration of that joy. At Christmas we remember how Jesus was born, and how Jesus died, and how Jesus rose again from the dead, breaking the chains of sin and death that held us in slavery before. At Christmas we celebrate the story that never loses its power, even after two thousand years.

At Christmas we should join the angels in singing, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace, good will to men!"

I don't think I'm missing it right now. Right now, I'm feeling that joy.

Are you?

Have a great Christmas, everybody!

And this makes me sad. It makes me sad because it's a lie. It makes me sad because it scares people. And it makes me sad because just about this time in the month, when my motivation has dried up, my plot disappeared, and every word I write looks like trash, I start believing it's true.

Maybe you're there, too. Maybe you're wondering why you ever thought this NaNo thing was a good idea. Maybe you're wondering how 50,000 words written in a 30 day lapse of sanity, powered by coffee and chocolate, can ever become something beautiful.

For you, the fearful, the discouraged, I have a question.

Is your story worth it?

That's really the standard here. It doesn't matter whether you write a novel in 30 days or 30 years. It doesn't matter whether the first draft is spotless or a complete garbage dump. It doesn't matter how long it is, how old you are, how much experience you have-- what matters is is it worth it?

Why are you writing this story? Why does it matter? Why did you originally fall in love with this idea? Maybe you have a message you want to share with the world. That matters. Maybe you wanted to prove to yourself or somebody else that you could do it-- you could write a novel! That's important. Maybe you're just doing it for fun, because it seemed like a cool thing to do. That's worth it, too. 

There are any number of reasons you started writing this month, and believe me, whatever it was that got you started, it was worth it. It was worth starting, it was worth getting those words on the page.

And now you get to decide. Is it worth finishing? Or, to put it another way, is it so utterly worthless that you could actually bring yourself to give up now? Do you love your characters that little? Is your message of so little importance to you? Do you really want to miss out on this opportunity to write a real book-- or at least give it your best shot? Are you really happy with giving up?

There's a reason writers (and other artists!) experience fear. We're writers! We live scary lives! We put so much of ourselves on paper-- all our talent, or lack of it, so much of what we believe, so much of what we love, so much of everything that matters to us. And for many of us, we've defined success as having someone else read that piece of paper, which has so much of our identities wrapped up in it, and actually like it.

And if they don't?

As writers, we can't afford to be afraid. We can't afford to doubt ourselves. We can't afford insecurity. Because as soon as we let the fear creep in, our entire way of life is in danger. Once the doubt takes hold, it's far, far too easy for us to give up. And so we don't let ourselves be scared. We give ourselves anti-fear pep talks. We tell ourselves that we're doing great.

And then somebody walks in and says that NaNoWriMo can only produce a bad story. And then we start to believe him.

Now, does NaNoWriMo make you write a bad story? Here's the hard answer: yes. But not in the way people say it does. Every story you write is going to be a bad story. I'm sorry. It is going to be. No story starts out perfect. First drafts are ugly. But that doesn't mean you should give up.

Something my pastor says all the time is, "If something is worth doing, it's worth doing poorly." If your story is worth writing, it's worth writing in 30 days and making a mess of. It's worth trying to write in 30 days and failing miserably. It's worth never participating in NaNo and taking years to complete. It's worth never completing at all. It's worth it.

NaNo doesn't have to make you write a good story. The beauty of NaNo is that it motivates you to write a story, no matter how sucky it may seem. You wrote something. Maybe 50k of sparkling, witty genius. Maybe 100 words of dry, worthless mediocrity. It doesn't matter, because you wrote something.

Is you story is worth it? If so, don't let anyone tell you your doing it wrong.

Do you plan to make writing your career? Do you think writing qualifies as a real job?

I used to write fan fiction. I posted my stories on FanFiction.net (and you can still read said stories here, if you wish), and, though it might seem egotistical to say it, I think I was a pretty well known member of the community there, when it came to Lord of the Rings humor (which was almost all I wrote). I knew a lot of people, got a lot of reviews (by comparison), and generally felt pretty confident in my own worth as a fan fiction author.

Of course it didn’t start out that way. For the first few months of my time on FF (as we affectionately call it), I had only three readers who reviewed even semi regularly, and two of them were my friends in real life. My first story still only has 2 reviews (it was really sucky). In the early days of my residence there, I often felt like I wasn’t making any progress and like nobody really liked or cared about my stories. But by the time my one year anniversary rolled around, I had come farther than I’d ever imagined, with stories I was actually proud of (a few, anyway), hundreds of reviews, and a boatload of friends who I really, really loved.

And then I started blogging.

Suddenly I was too busy to write fan fiction, or even read it. It became a struggle just to keep up with a single forum, and I completely gave up on trying to answer most of my private messages.

Instead, I was investing my time in pounding out blog posts, commenting on other blogs, and getting more serious about my original writing.

And it feels like I’m back to square one.

This is exactly what I was doing those first months of fan fiction. Maybe my memory is just suffering, but I feel like fan fiction wasn’t even this hard. I’m pretty sure writing blog posts is more difficult than scribbling funny one-shots. And it all feels so pointless. Why didn’t I just stick with FF? I could have kept on writing more stories and getting more reviews and making new friends. Instead, here I am, trying to start all over from the beginning.

When I started this blog, I thought of it as trying something new. It wasn’t really. It was nearly the same thing I’d done before.

To tell the truth, you’re not really doing anything new when you get another social media account or write another book. You're simply going back and doing the same thing you did last time you got a social media account or wrote a book-- just a little bit different.

(I like to think of it as if I’m time traveller going back and creating alternate timelines, if you’re not confused enough already.)

Have you ever felt like you're just doing the same things over again? What's something just a little bit different you've done recently? Or you'd like to try?

What are you struggling with writing-wise right now? Have you been through the whole editing phase? HOW DID YOU SURVIVE?

5. You'll forget all your ideas if you don't write them down!

Or am I the only one who has this problem?

What are some creative methods you employ to inspire yourself to write? Am I the only person who forgets all her story ideas? WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE AND NOT WRITING??