Two Bits of Thread
The 100 Day Challenge
On February 22 of 2026, thousands of people (including myself) started The 100 Day Project.
In full transparency, I’ve done it before and I have never finished.
Never.
I start with the best of intentions, but somewhere along the way, I fade. Usually quickly. I’m left disappointed in myself, questioning whether I’m really an artist, or whether I’m simply someone who can’t commit.
But I’m trying again this year, and I feel optimistic.
I turned 51 in February and it felt like a reset. This feels like the year to really commit to my creative process.
I’ve been dealing with some chronic health issues that manifested into something new over the last few months. I’m exhausted. I see my appearance changing. I question every cough, every tired day, and every headache. I’ve started physical therapy for arthritis in my neck and do these lovely chin tucks that make me laugh every time I look in the mirror.
And let’s be even more honest, the world really hurts right now. It feels like it keeps getting worse, daily.
What does my creativity matter in the face of pain, suffering, brutality, and oppression?
I struggle with that.
I have to remember that creativity, throughout history, has acted as a lifeline. It has been a place to process the chaos. The act of creation is a protest to that of destruction.
During my birthday week, I finished cleaning my art studio. It’s been almost three years since we moved here, three years of a mess I struggled to look at. Three years of boxes and clutter. I still created, but on the dining room table; spread out but always with the looming sense that my work can’t just perpetually sit there.
Finishing that space felt like a long exhale. Like I can start to breathe again.
Since then, I have created something every single day.
That, in itself, feels like a small miracle.
This year, I am letting go of an internalized pressure that I “should” share everything I make. That inner debate and the social media process emotionally drain me. But I am also making a conscious effort to share my work in a way that feels more authentic to me, to teach myself that the act of creation and the act of sharing are two separate functions.
In the past, the act of creating has never been the source of my burnout. The act of sharing has been. Somewhere in the depths of my brain, I fused those two acts. When sharing becomes exhausting, my creativity dimmed with it.
Creating is sacred in and of itself. It is an act of meditation and love. It builds up inside me. It begs to come out.
Sharing is a different practice, one that I have to learn to approach gently and on my own terms. One that doesn’t bring guilt because I haven’t shared in a few days, or a week, or a month. I am working to make my sharing a sort on ongoing journal that even when no one else sees it, I can look back and see representations of who I was in the moment.
So when I committed this year to the 100 day project, I had to consider what is actually doable? What can I commit to? What can I sustain?
Last year I fell in love with ink, specifically the inks from Birmingham Pen Company. They are luscious and rich, and I’ve become a bit obsessed with their colors. So, I chose a simple premise: meditative ink explorations. Put some ink on paper. See what happens. Add some outlines, designs. Play. Meditate. Get lost in the process
I find myself 14 days into the project and I am creating. Creating fantasy ink landscapes with tiny stories embedded in their color changes. I am also working on a larger mixed media project, with texture, ink, and goauche. I find the desire to write returning in the process, loosening the friction of an old pattern.
I believe I will succeed this year, because I am not doing this alone.
I find myself in an amazing writers group. We meet weekly, we encourage each other, we check in with each other.
Earlier this week, we even recorded for the podcast What Chapter You On? (It hasn’t aired yet, but we all had so much such fun.) Several of our group are also doing The 100 Day Project and we send each other our day’s accomplishments. This kind of community seriously keeps you moving forward.
Every two weeks, I also meet with a beautiful woman’s group called Solace (Inner Wisdom Circle). It grounds me. It reminds me of who I am and who I am becoming. It expands my own sense of possibility.
I feel surrounded by wise women, including my own daughter who inspires me to accomplish the things I set out to do.
So yes. I am here.
I am HERE.
I am choosing to inhabit the happiness of where I am.
Below, I’ll include the social links to my writing group because they each bring something beautiful into the world. You should meet them too.
If you’d like to see the work I’m creating this year, you can check out my “notes” here in Substack (where I try to share a picture or 2 every day of the project, although I do get behind) or follow my process on Instagram.
My amazing writing group, in no particular order;
Bridgette, author of “Watering Words” and writer/photographer at Bridgette Tales.
Anjelica Reece, author of “Wayward Magic”, or here on Substack.
And our wonderful friend Laura, not here on social media.
If you made it this far, here’s peek at my mixed media collection in the early phase of piece #1, a collection of mythic journeys and fantasy landscapes.
This was such a beautiful compilation of art and thoughts and belief in yourself. I know you’re going to beat this 100 day challenge this year! You are so incredible!