If you’ve stalled out, it might be because you’re carrying a backpack of heavy expectations. It’s not enough that you’re writing a novel in a month. You want your novel to matter.

Maybe you set out to write the novel you needed to read when you were younger. Maybe you long to create something wildly original. Maybe your whole reason for doing this is because You Have Something Important to Say.

If so, the weight of all that meaning could be smothering your words before they make it to the page.

Here’s what you might need to hear: Your novel doesn’t have to change the world to matter.

It doesn’t have to solve social problems or offer profound insights. It doesn’t have to be the next great work of literature. It doesn’t have to impress anyone or win any awards or end up on any important lists. It doesn’t even have to be published.

Your novel matters because creating it is an accomplishment that matters to you.

There’s power in that simplicity. Right now, today, you’re creating something that didn’t exist yesterday. You’re pulling characters and situations and entire worlds out of your imagination and giving them form. You’re doing something that most people think about doing but never actually do.

That’s not nothing.

Maybe your novel will only matter to you. Maybe it will teach you something about yourself, or help you work through a difficult time, or simply prove that you can finish something you started. Maybe it will matter to your family, your friends, the few people who read it and connect with something in your story.

Maybe it will sit in a drawer and never be read by anyone except you. And maybe that’s exactly what it’s supposed to do.

Not every novel needs to be a masterpiece. Some novels are just meant to be practice. Some are meant to be exploration. Some are meant to be fun. Some are meant to be healing. Some are meant to be proof that you can do hard things.

All of those purposes are worthy. All of those novels matter.

Write the novel you want to write, not the novel you think ought to be written.

Now open your draft and get going.