Two months ago, I took on an ambitious home improvement project: transform our tropical-style backyard into a desert-style backyard.

Which meant: getting rid of 99% of the plants, bring new soil, plant new plants, cover the area around the plants with the weed-protecting fabric, and the very last step — cover the whole area with gravel.

I spent 10 hours across three Saturdays carrying buckets of gravel (don’t worry, my husband was helping me 😄) and spreading it around. And for 9 hours and 55 minutes it felt like I wasn’t making any progress. Each new bucket seemed to make no difference — there was still SO MUCH ground to cover. It seemed pointless. Until it didn’t.

That’s why it’s so freaking hard to be writing a book. Each scene is a bucket. And it feels that no matter how many scenes you write, you will never finish the draft. But you will.

Keep going.