For almost twenty years, I’ve talked about how badly I wanted to write a novel. Somewhere in my office closet is a box with dozens of papery skeletons that lived to hit a few thousands words. I have piles of half-finished notebooks with handwritten outlines and character arcs and settings. No matter how hard I tried, I never seemed to be able to finish a novel. I would get to thirty or forty thousand words and run out of steam. I’d binder clip the unfinished fragments I’d written and set it on a shelf. Just within reach. Just in case I wanted to pick it up again. Eventually though, enough time would pass that I’d pull out the box of expired drafts from the closet and unceremoniously lay the latest incomplete pages to rest with the others. Then I’d close the lid, re-bury it in the closet and move on to the next idea that was definitely, absolutely going to work.

Spoiler alert: they never did.