It is the job of the novelist to touch the reader.
Let every hindrance to joy become the soil out of which joy blossoms.
Don't give away to others what you have not first given away at home.
Work on what is real rather than worry about what is unreal.
Just as stars shine brightest in the darkest night, your joy blazes brilliantly through life's problems when you count them as joy.
Plotting is difficult for me, and always has been. I do that before I actually start writing, but I always do characters, and the arc of the story, first... You can't do anything without a story arc. Where is it going to begin, where will it end.