I had the perfect idea for a coffee drink.

I love Starbucks’ cold brew drinks, and I love Starbucks holiday drinks, but the Irish cream cold brew? Blegh! They could do so much better. There may already be a famous peppermint mocha drink, but a peppermint mocha cold brew would be much more flavourful and full of holiday cheer. (I mean, does Irish cream really scream “Christmas” to you? Cue the crickets.)

So, I had the idea. I planned out the ingredients in my head. It would be a breeze to make and I’d get right back to my work after my usual 10-minute break with a tasty cold brew in hand.

One hour later… [insert the Spongebob timecard here]

There sat my cold brew, finally finished. My first couple of ideas hadn’t worked; the hot syrup solidified in the cold drink, the cold foam didn’t foam, and there wasn’t enough ice in the freezer. Thing after thing went wrong until I was dead tired by the time I finished making this one drink.

I collapsed into my office chair. I’d forgotten the excitement about making the drink and now it was just there to keep me sane as I finished my work. I took a sip without really thinking about it.

And pure Christmas attacked my tastebuds.

I stared in awe at this little unassuming drink that had taken way too long to make. I took another sip – just as incredible! I sucked down the drink within a few minutes; the final product had come out a million times better than I’d expected.

Nothing went as I planned, but I came out on the other side with an amazing drink ten times better than that Irish cream cold brew! A different coffee drink that I was already familiar with would have taken less time to make, but I went out on a limb and reaped the benefits – and now I can make this drink again and again without repeating my original mistakes.

I’m just about to finish NaNoWriMo. Some of you are, too. It’s certainly something to celebrate, but it can be easy to get so lost in patting ourselves on the back that we don’t think about what’s next. It’s time to move on to the editing stage with your NaNo novel, but meanwhile, why not do something new? Why not start a new book? Why not make every month NaNoWriMo? If you were able to write 50k words this month, what stops you from doing it again? (Tip: you can even use the NaNo website to track your progress – it works all year long for any project!)

Yes, it’s going to take another month or more to finish this next book. You’ll probably get a lot of things wrong along the way. But in the end, won’t it be worth it? You’ll have yet another book written even as you’re polishing another.

So don’t stop with NaNo, or whatever your most recent project is. Celebrate, then keep the momentum going. Go out on a limb and create something new – something even better than my cold brew! And let me know about your amazing upcoming projects in the comments.

Happy writing!
-E.J.

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