Yesterday, the United States celebrated as NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover landed safely. With everything else going on in the world, you may have forgotten about the rover after it blasted off on July 30, 2020. But after a 293-million-mile journey, Perseverance touched down and is already hard at work. The mission is to explore the Jezero Crater, an ancient lakebed, for signs of life from the past. Scientists believe that if microbes were in the lake, they might have left traces in the crater’s rocks for Perseverance to detect. Perseverance has high-resolution cameras, a drill for core samples, instruments for examining organic compounds, and microphones so we can hear what the surface of Mars sounds like for the first time ever.
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Searching for Perseverance
It’s not just the scientific community that’s taking note of Perseverance’s journey though. Merriam-Webster reported that lookups of “perseverance” spiked by 2,300% on February 18. They reminded us that perseverance means “continued effort to do or achieve something despite difficulties, failure, or opposition: the action or condition or an instance of persevering.”
As a writer and a small business owner, sometimes it feels like I’m on a 293-million-mile journey. Developing ideas, producing rough drafts, making revisions, working with clients or colleagues… The list of things to do can be overwhelming, and that’s just the business side. Everyone has a personal to-do list as well.
It Takes a Village
One of the key things to remember about our Mars rover is that it has a team of people working alongside it before the launch, during the cruise, and now that it’s landed. We’re not all writers. Not all of us own businesses. And not everyone can be rocket scientists. But we are all traveling through space and time, so it’s so important for us to have a support system too, just like Perseverance.
Having a team in place can help us persevere when we’re working on our daunting to-do lists, fighting writer’s block, or drowning in emails. Online communities and forums are great sources for building your support team. I’ve listed a few options below, but I’m curious: which communities help you persevere?
Critique Circle – a free site that allows authors to post stories in exchange for feedback on other people’s writing
Writers Unite! – a Facebook group for supporting and encouraging writers
SCORE – a nonprofit business association for small business owners
If you need help persevering with your writing project, an extra set of eyes can help. Contact me to see how your project can benefit from professional copyediting and proofreading.