Beginnings are always impossible

Many, many, many years ago, too many, the exact number of which would probably make me feel too old – I was looking at the structure of novel writing particularly in the high fantasy genre. And they tend to be start at the beginning or you start at the middle and figure everything out. I’ve always been a start in the middle kind of person. Beginnings are hard and intimidating and pressurised. It’s probably why I re-wrote the prologue to that book 100 times. That’s not an exaggeration – I’m probably being conservative. Because it had to be perfect, to start. Which is of course, wrong. Thankfully I’m no longer a perfectionist. You don’t need to be perfect to start you need to be fearless and you need to be brave. Not for very long and not forever. But for just one moment you need to be brave.

So here we are. In the middle. But it’s also the beginning, so we might have to be fearless for just a little bit.

I was watching a video the other day and someone was talking about how you have to define what it is you are talking about or everyone will think they agree, but they really don’t because they are talking about different things. So I’ll give that a crack.

Operation Move isn’t a hashtag. Operation Move isn’t a movement. Operation Move is not about numbers of people. Operation Move is I know everyone’s stories. Operation Move is everyone knows mine. Everyone knows when I was strong, when I was weak, when I was fearless and when I was afraid. Operation Move is a sisterhood that celebrates one another’s achievements because they know what you worked for, what you invested in it and how much you wanted it. Operation Move is about empowering women to take up their own space wherever they want to be – out on a run, at the gym and in their own lives. Operation Move is about creating supportive and safe environments where people can discover just how brave they really are. That is what we do. And now it is what I do.

I wrote this days ago, but couldn’t bring myself to publish it. But I only have to be fearless for a minute.