#Write, right?

I just finished putting together a timeline for the next three months, and guess what I’ll be doing (God willing) every day.

 

• Breathing
• Praising God for giving me breath!
• Eating
• Laundry
• Perusing Instagram & Pinterest
• Reading
• WRITING

We should write everyday, right? Well, I’m going to have to answer a resounding ‘YES’!

Why? I’m glad you asked.

In life, I tend to  try and learn from other peoples’ mistakes. I can’t say I was lucky enough to take this lesson from a thriving writerly-friend and avoid the mental torment of, ‘write, or not to write’. Instead, I’ve spent the last few years piddling with words and dawdling with novel ideas. Considering my day job is teaching English, you’d think I could just sit down at my computer each afternoon and draw from inspiring, historically epic writers I’m lecturing about. Admitting that I’ve wasted those afternoons is hard, but confessing what I’ve wasted them doing is more difficult.

I’ve made excuses, and in the name of ‘research’ watched the entire series’ of Firefly (and so many more brilliant, science fiction and fantasy shows) on Netflix… But, it really did help with character and world building! I’ve blamed endless loads of laundry for too many wordless afternoons. The self deprecating thoughts of not being good enough, and/or not having a good enough story to tell has even kept me from my keyboard for days. I’ve taken ‘breaks’, used other creative outlets, and doubted for too long.

Making a timeline that covers the next three months, and realizing that writing will lead to more writing is the step I’ve taken to correct my mistakes. If you think about it like exercise (stick with me), the more you work out the stronger you get. Eventually, your body wakes up craving a thorough stretch or long walk. My goal is to let my imagination overflow, instead of tamping it down. If exercised daily, my creativity will grow so strong that writing a chapter or outlining a new story will be less like Dana Carvey trying to “Pump You Up”, and more like Arnold Schwarzenegger bench pressing Dana. (Did I just date myself?)

Repressing my writing with (enter excuse here), has been one of the biggest mistakes I’ve made in my writerly-life. I have learned from it, and don’t plan on repeating it. I love writing, and whether I’m journaling, blogging, or writing a book, it’s an outlet for the electric ideas that make my mind wander and wonder.

So, write, right? WRITE.