Epiphany and Encouragement

Today while I was trudging to my first class through -14 degree Fahrenheit weather, I had an epiphany. Finding time to write in your busy daily schedule is a lot like trying to walk up an icy slope when you can’t feel your legs . . . or your feet . . . or really any of your lower extremities. For every step you take forward in clearing your schedule, it feels like you slide back two feet as more obligations slip in to take up time and space. Every time you feel like you’ve found sure footing grounded in a good idea or a brief flash of inspiration, it turns out it’s actually black ice and you go tumbling face first towards the ground and have to start back at square one again. Writing in your spare time is also like walking up an icy slope because everyone else is laughing at you, saying you’ll never make it, it’s too hard, you’ll just crash and fall and make a fool of yourself. But we keep climbing that slippery slope anyways. And you know what? Sometimes we can actually make it.

Today I don’t have any pithy remarks or wise advice to dispense. Today I just want to send out a little signal of encouragement to the aspiring writers of the world. Even though sometimes your task may seem impossible, the mountain of dirty diapers may seem to tower ever higher, and you may begin to believe you will spend the rest of your life doing the same types of drudgery day in and day out, think again. You have a choice: and that is to try, against all odds, and go ahead and write your story. If you never try you will never fail, but you will never succeed either, will you?