A Mid-Year Reckoning

A letter to assess, celebrate, recalibrate, re-start, refresh—and to keep writing!

Dear Writers,

Guess what? We’re halfway through the year. Which I’m going to argue is the most important moment of the year—yet it’s often overlooked.

That’s because New Year’s Resolutions hog the spotlight of our goal making— attracting media attention, special workshops, trips to one’s therapists, late-night wrangling, critique, and fanfare.

And then by late February they’re generally a distant memory, an annoying whiff of dreams past, or worse, a nettlesome nag of an inner critic.

But the “mid-year reckoning” is more important because when we fall off the horse of our goals and dreams, we tend to stay fallen (and, yes, I’m writing in part about my own memoir writing this year).

Maybe you made a commitment at the start of the year—to write every day, or to finally finish the chapter you’ve been circling for three years, or to show up for JanYourStory and keep your streak alive all the way to December.

And maybe you did. Or maybe you did for a while, and then life arrived, as it always does, with its perfectly timed interruptions, procrastinations, and rationalizations.

So here’s what I want us to do: let’s all pause for a moment and think about what we aimed to do earlier in the year and take honest stock of where we actually are. And then, to echo Brooke’s essay on resilience last week, I want to recognize that the fact that you’re reading this counts. Don’t minimize it.

You are still here. You are still interested in your story. You haven’t given up on the version of yourself who has something worth saying. That is not nothing. That is actually everything.

A mid-year reckoning doesn’t have to be an accounting of failures. It can be something gentler and more honest: a conversation with yourself about what actually happened, and what you want to happen next. It’s also best if it’s one-part celebration.

This post is behind a paywall because our weekly dispatches are one of Memoir Nation’s paid membership benefits. We welcome you staying at the free level here on Substack, which gives you access to our monthly free newsletter. If you upgrade on Substack, you’ll get all the weekly dispatches, and/or we invite you to become a member of Memoir Nation where for $99 we’ll gift you a subscription to this newsletter, PLUS you’ll get access to many more benefits.

Thank you and write on!