This is the third manuscript I’ve finished. But the first two were around 70k words and took nearly 2 years each to finish. By contrast, thanks to the lockdown, I finished this in 105 days. I set myself a goal of 1000 words everyday. And when I reached about 90k, I just automatically increased my word count because I wanted to be done with it. It is far from a finished article, and the second draft will take an extremely long time, but it is something. For a few hours after I finished it, it felt good. I’ve been struggling with feeling like a useless person and thinking that I will never amount to much due to the fact that I’m almost 30 with nothing to show for it, on top of which I could not secure funding for my PhD, which I will be doing nevertheless and paying for out of my own pocket by working part time jobs. But writing so much in three months and writing a story that I’ve wanted to write for so long helped alleviate some of the anxiety I have. Just wanted to tell this to someone, I guess.

Take care, people. Keep reading and keep writing. :)