Struggle

How are you doing on your writing goals this week? I confess here that it's been a struggle for me this week. I've been really sick: sinus infection, IBD flare, diabetes blood sugar climb, and finally a bad recurrence of my spine troubles. Not fun. And it made it hard to write—it made it hard to even want to write.

Life is like that. It doesn't give way to our plans. Always tasks and problems will leap up to beat us back. It is easy, understandable, and maybe even correct to fall back at times. But the problem with retreat remains that we might not advance again....

I see it all the time. A person drops out of college for good reasons and says she will go next year--but she doesn't. A person doesn't pursue a romantic relationship because he doesn't have time now and will later--but years past and he never found the time. A writer will write tomorrow or next week or as soon as the kids leave home or when retirement rolls around—but the stories don't get told.

We have to be writers in the present. Not writers tomorrow or next week, but now. Now despite everything else before us. That's what I tell myself in weeks like this. Writers write. To be a writer—to be truly committed to what I believe is my vocation in life—I have to write.

Even in the weeks when I struggle...I have to write. And every word is a victory, a confirmation of what I believe about my calling in life.

Writers write.