by Lynn Blackburn @LYNNHBLACKBURN

My family vacations every summer at a small lake house in the mountains of North Carolina.

It’s now one of our favorite places in the world but as I recall, my first trip to the house wasn’t particularly pleasant. My aunt and uncle own the house and they had invited our extended family to come for a cookout. They gave us detailed directions, but I think half of us got lost that first time.

The directions were great, but the roads were confusing, they were gravel, and they were steep. For the first couple of years, every time I needed to run an errand I would grip the steering wheel and pray I wouldn’t meet another car—or a deer—on the steep hills in the subdivision.

But a few summers ago, five years after that first trip, we loaded our kids into the van and took off late on a Friday evening and I didn’t have a second of trepidation. I wasn’t worried about getting turned around, even in the dark.

The day after we arrived, I made a quick trip to the grocery store. As I went up a particularly steep hill, two deer ran in front of me. I hit my brakes and sat there for a minute to watch them. When I dropped my minivan down into the lowest possible gear and started back up the hill, I didn’t panic when I went backward for a few seconds before the wheels found traction and I climbed the hill with relative ease.

When I reached the top of the hill I thought about how much easier it is now. And here’s the thing…the roads are exactly the same. They are still twisty. Still gravel. Still steep.

What’s changed isn’t the challenge. What’s changed is my ability to handle the challenge. And that change happened because of repeated practice. The more often I got up and down those hills, the more confident I became that I would make it to my final destination.

You know where I’m going with this, don’t you?

As writers, we start our journey toward publication and it is full of unknowns. Sometimes we get completely lost and have to stop and regroup.

We clutch our one sheets and force ourselves to hand our work over for critique. We hit roadblocks and dead ends and sometimes it feels like we’re going backward.

When you’re in the thick of it, it can feel like it will never get easier. But several years into this, I can tell you that as long as you don’t quit, it will get easier.

Of course, as some things get easier, you’ll find yourself in a new place with new obligations.

And it will be hard again.

I thought about all of this as I sat at the stop sign on that steep gravel road. I’m in another season of firsts and there’s something new and scary around every curve. But when I start to feel a bit panicky, I take a few minutes to remind myself that these things will someday be part of my normal. They won’t terrify me any more.

As long as I don’t quit.

If things are hard right now, give yourself some grace. Don’t compare yourself—and your ability to handle whatever is challenging for you—with someone who’s been down this road more times than you have.

And whatever you do—don’t quit.

Grace and peace,

Lynn H. Blackburn loves writing romantic suspense because her childhood fantasy was to become a spy, but her grown-up reality is that she’s a huge chicken and would have been caught on her first mission. She prefers to live vicariously through her characters and loves putting them into all kinds of terrifying situations while she’s sitting at home safe and sound in her pajamas!

Unknown Threat, the first book in her Defend and Protect series, was a 2021 Christy Award finalist, and her previous titles have won the Carol Award, the Selah Award, and the Faith, Hope, and Love Reader’s Choice Award.

She is a frequent conference speaker and has taught writers all over the country. Lynn lives in South Carolina with her true love and their three children. You can follow her real life happily ever after by signing up for her newsletter at LynnHBlackburn.com and @LynnHBlackburn on Bookbub, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram.