I have a confession to make. Yes, another one.

I have completely and utterly failed at NaNoWriMo.

I was prepared for it, excited for it — I was geared up to write everyday for thirty days, altering the purpose not just to write a novel, but to write anything at all: poetry, short stories, flash fiction, blog posts, essays, and, yes, even THE NOVEL.

I was motivated; I was set. I was going to rediscover my own creativity, listen to my muses whisper their stories as I translated those tales to the page. I was ready to experience the rush of words shoot through my body, to my very fingertips, and feel the words flow.

Except, the words didn’t exactly flow.

In fact, they pretty much stopped altogether.

Still, I continued to follow friends and fellow writers, cheering them on as they met their 5K, 10K, 30K word marks, all the while incredulous at all that I had accomplished as the hours passed into days and the days passed into weeks. My grand total? Three paragraphs of a new story and two sentences of the novel.

That’s right: TWO SENTENCES.

It wasn’t exactly what I had in mind. But then again, maybe it never was supposed to be that easy in the first place.

The thing this has taught me is that while I may have failed NaNoWriMo, I know that I haven’t failed as a writer. I don’t believe that, as writers, we ever really can.

You can spit out novel after novel after novel. You can write dozens of short stories and a thousand pieces of poetry. Or, you can take a break and write nothing at all. Either way, you will never be any less of a writer because writing isn’t just about what you do, it’s about who you are.

You are a writer.

You find inspiration in a conversation or a piece of art or a favorite quote.

You are a writer.

You feel the story bubbling up from somewhere inside of you, ready to burst forth in a declaration of poetry and prose.

You are a writer.

You will always be creating, always telling stories, and always looking at the world through a different lense because of who you are, not just what you do.

Your words may fail. Your characters may fall silent. Your world may feel a bit darker, a little less whole as your creative mind rests, devoid of any script.

But those stories will be slowly building inside of you, and little by little, those characters will begin to awaken. And one day, just when you begin to believe that there are no words left in you, you will write.

We are writers, and in some way, some form, we will always be writing.

That is our success.