I joined the My 500 Words group (link 1, link 2) almost as soon as I heard about it. I was sitting in a dining room in Prescott, Arizona—an uncomfortable dining room, a dining room of questionable welcome.  I didn’t know if I would find welcome in My 500 Words, but I was excited about the challenge.  Jeff Goins added me right away (thank you, Jeff).

One other friend, Tonia—a two-months friend but already close as a sister—joined up with me.   Over the course of this year, her encouragement and leadership and example of going from dipping her toe in the water to full, open hospitality and engagement have taught me much.

I met other friends here—true friends, not just Facebook “friends”—along the way.  I have traveled to other cities and states and countries to meet some of them.  I have derived a broader, deeper writer network through this group.  I have watched people in every state of writing development face their demons and wrestle with themselves in the dark.

I wrestled, too…with myself, with the angel on the riverbank.

I didn’t write every day.  In fact, I didn’t even write every day for the initial 31-day challenge.  I wrote more than I had written before.  But not every day.

I questioned my own abilities, my commitment.  These My 500 folks rallied behind me.  It was a mutual admiration society, a mutual encouragement society.

I failed at My 500 words.  But I also won…won great riches, in fact—lasting riches.  For “two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up.”  (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10)

And I’ll do even better this next year.  That’s a fact.

 

Bloghop:  Some of the fabulous My 500 co-pilgrims may have something to say on the matter…

Linze Brandon at Butterfly on a Broomstick
Vanessa Wright at Humouring the dark
Stella Myers at Stella’s Starshine
Amy Bovaird‪ at Amy’s Adventures
Crystal Thieringer at Muse and Meander
‪Carryl A Robinson‪ at Echoes from the Cave
Becky Williams Waters at A Novel Creation
Laura Hile at For the Love of Storytelling
Tonia Hurst at The Vast and Inscrutable Imponderabilities of Life

May 2015 kick your ass in all of the very best and most wonderful ways!