Cat Tales: Miscellany and Mischief

January 30 (30DBC)

30DBC January 30 Prompt: Former US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, born on this day in 1882, once said "I'm not the smartest fellow in the world, but I can sure pick smart colleagues." How important to your success (in any part of your life) is it to surround yourself with talented, knowledgeable, and/or fun people?

I'm feeling pretty good today, for once, and even better since WE MADE IT!! My first 30 Days of Blogging, officially complete after this entry.

I will probably give myself next month off from the group, though I'll browse through the fundraisers and see what I can't contribute to either donations or just participation in general with some things. February is gonna be a busy month, though, and I'm trying to take it easy, at least until pregnancy symptoms let up. They say the second trimester is the "honeymoon" trimester, where I'll be able to get a good night's sleep and not have to nap 3 hours during the day, and also not be sick all the time and not have literally zero motivation to do anything. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to that.

Now, on to the prompt!

I think it's very important, and that may sound surprising coming from an introvert. I honestly suck at being a self-starter, so having people around me who are putting in the work every single day is SUPER helpful NECESSARY for me to maintain any kind of momentum. I enjoy logging on to WDC and seeing what new items everyone is posting, even if I never read them. It's the activity in the Hub that reminds me that I'm not the only writer in the world, I'm not alone, and I'm surrounded by hard-working individuals who inspire me to do more.

Also, on Facebook, I have quite a few groups from writing and coaching classes that I'm a part of. The people in those groups inspire me, either directly or indirectly, with their questions, their honesty, and their day-to-day presence. In one group, there's even a Monday goals post where we're asked to input what our goals for the week are. If I post, I try to like and comment to encourage others in their goals, though I don't always post. I'm also trying to stay off of Facebook more, since the aftermath of Pres. Trump's first week is displayed ALL OVER THE PLACE (and I'm sure we're all just sick of seeing it at this point).

I'm also part of a 365 group on Facebook that has every member input their daily word count into a spreadsheet to see how it measures up against their daily goal. It's alright if you have 0 days, but you can make up for what you lost down the road and still get an average daily word count that's at or above what you set for yourself. I've had days that are all over the place: I wrote over 3K words one day, while on another day, I wrote a whopping 79 words. But my daily average is pretty sweet so far. I think I'm a little over my goal of 300 words per day at this point, but I'll have to go check (and input my word count from yesterday and today).

I can't leave out my bestie and alpha reader. We've lost a bit of touch over the past few months, but I attribute that to my pregnancy "blahs" and her going through a lot of stuff/finishing her own awesome novel and editing it. However, without this girl, I would never have finished "Kingdom of the New Moon." She's listed on the dedication page, 'cause seriously, until you've had a best friend who doubles as your writing bestie pretty much every day for a year, you wouldn't understand how closely we've bonded, even being just virtual besties from across the country.

All in all, without the communities that I've become a part of and the friends that I've made, it would be so hard to keep going. I'm reminded every day that I'm part of a larger community, made up of writers of all walks of life who all want to do one thing: change the world with their writing, even if that change is as simple as taking someone out of their bad day and into a new world full of adventure.

AlyCatAuthor