12 = 0?!

I've been holding myself to the challenge.  While I haven't worked much every day, I've worked every day so far.  In fact, today saw me take one of the freewrites I did with my summer fiction class, and transform it in a way that was really helpful to a chapter I'd been struggling with.  So, I saved my new writing under the "Novel in Progress" file. 

When I was looking at all the previous files that were in there, I became a bit disconcerted about my organization.  I had many files, many I knew to be duplicates, so I decided to reorganize my "Novel in Progress" file.  Guess what?

I have twelve sub-folders in my "Novel in Progress" file.  Do you know what that means?  It means I possibly have 12 chapters of my novel partially written.  Do you know what else that means?  It means that I have 12 fragments (or I should say "categories of fragments) of writing that I don't know what I'm doing with yet.  Does 12 = 0?

No, it doesn't.  It means that I've already begun to do some decent work on this thing.  Will I one day know how to put some of this shit together?  I hope so!  In the meantime, it isn't my job to worry about big picture.  My job right now is to listen to John.  And to Willy.  And to Katie.  And to Sarah.  And to Aunt Carol.  When they are whole enough, when they are realized enough, they'll tell me what they are trying to say.

In the meantime?  Holy shit, I've got twelve.