Category: writing

I am spending this week attending a writer’s conference put on by a group called Writing For Your Life. The conference itself is called Writing Dangerously, and it features some heavy hitters in the Christian publishing field. Already several times this week I have felt like what James Stockdale, Ross Perot’s running mate in the 1992 Presidential campaign, must have felt like when he said “Who am I? Why am I here?” It’s really easy to feel outclassed in this group. After all, I have never published a word. Yet I have felt a pull to write for a very long time, and these past two days have begun to light a fireunder me.

I know I want to write. The questions I need to answer are what do I want to write, and to whom? This is what I’m grappling with right now, and I have no idea where it will lead. I know i have a story I want to tell, but what story? And how will I tell it? Will I write a book or keep a blog going? From what I’ve heard so far this week, blogs are now considered kind of old school. But I think there’s still a lot they can offer. For me, it could be a way to tell my story over time, and potentially reshape it into book form later. I know people who have done this. I’m not really looking for monetary gain. I know anything I have to say will probably not sell widely in the mass market, and that’s okay with me. Right now I have the time and the freedom to do whatever I want. In a way this is liberating, but in another way it’s a little scary, honestly. Throughout my life I’ve never been really good at holding myself accountable. It’s time for that to change.

I guess what I am getting at, when all is said and done, is that my writing is very much a work in progress and wil probably remain so for a while. I have no time limit so I’m thinking I’ll do some playing around to see what works. In any event, like Rachel Maddow says, watch this space.

Why do I write? I do sometimes ask myself this question. Many people, my wife included, are prolific journalers. I’ve traditionally been terrible at journaling. I’ve always thought it was due to inherent laziness, but I’m beginning to realize that it might be a problem of difficulty focusing due to undiagnosed ADD. My PCP and I had a disagreement about this recently, but he did put me on a medication that appears to be helping, at least for now. So the bottom line is, I’ve left no journals for posterity. 25 or so years ago, I started a weekly writing endeavor called Ramblings and Rumblings. It was an Email I sent out with some personal stuff and also some musings on current events. I think blogs were just beginning to be a thing, but I wasn’t even aware of the term. Anyway, at some point, like most things throughout my life, I stopped sending out the R & R. Ever since then I’ve made sporadic attempts at blogging, with now being the most recent. But the question remains: Why do I write? I have found that, if I don’t write, my feelings remain bottled up, and my overall health suffers, both physical and mental. This is especially true now, with so many things going on that are so wrong and frankly so terrifying. There was a time when I wanted my writing to be noticed. I would have liked to have been one of those people with tens or hundreds of thousands of readers who avidly followed what I said. In short, I wanted to be an influencer. I realize now that this was just an ego thing. I’ve actually built up a pretty sizable following on Twitter, and I’ve learned that it really doesn’t amount to much in the grand scheme of things. It’s gotten to the point where blogs are a penny a dozen, and I have made peace with the fact that anything I say in public is somewhat akin to the guy on the bus carrying on a monologue with himself. So, circling back for a minute, with all that in mind, why don’t I just journal? Once again, there might be some ego or self-importance or whatever in this way of thinking, but I still want people to see what I write. I know people do read, even if they don’t comment. Something I’ve noticed on Twitter is how little interaction there is. It’s actually kind of astounding; I have more than 6,500 followers, but most of my tweets barely register, getting maybe a few likes. This has become enough for me. I know I don’t interact with everything I see; if I did it would turn into a full-time job and then some. So I guess the ultimate answer to the question why do I write? Could be summed up this way: I primarily do it for myself, to get my feelings out in a hopefully constructive way. And, in doing so, I hope I will have an impact on others, no matter how small.

Sitting here, trying to keep myself on task, I’m reminded of how hard it is to self-discipline oneself. I have come to the conclusion that the only way I’m going to move myself forward is to force myself to do the hard work that goes along with getting things accomplished. To that end, I’m going to start looking at my writing and thought-provoking reading as a job task. This means setting aside allotted blocks of time each day to do these tasks. It sounds great in theory, and I’ve resolved to do this before, but up to now it really hasn’t stuck. It’s oh so easy to get sidetracked, and once that happens it’s twice as hard to get back to square one. At least that’s how it is for me. At least that’s how it is for me. I’ll get these great ideas, and get off to a roaring start, and then something will momentarily divert my attention, and hey I’ll just do this for a minute, and then something else leads from that, and what do you know, I’m wandering further and further down the road of distraction. Then I check the time, and oops, another day has slipped away. I really need to do whatever I need to do to minimize days happening like that going forward. Right now I’m taking inspiration from Sarah, who is hard at work formulating the online Hebrew class she’ll be teaching this summer. I think we can accomplish a lot by encouraging each other through this process. She says it’s possible to learn new habits. Sometimes I wonder, but I’ll take her word for it. I am formulating some immediate changes to my daily regimen that might help. First and foremost, no games during the day. This means completely staying off DiceWorld, Trivia Crack, Hanging, and whatever other mindless diversion might come my way. I have not yet determined the hours of which this moratorium will be in effect; that’s still a work in progress. Also, I need to force myself o write. I’ve wasted far too much time waiting for inspiration. Sometimes inspiration just doesn’t come, and the best one can do is just do. Even if I write crap, it’s writing, and funnily enough I can think of some times when inspiration came in the midst of writing something I thought would be crap. So writing needs to happen every day, and it will happen. As I said, this is all a work in progress, so it might take some time to get everything to fall into place. For now, though, it’s time to start developing those new habits, wherever they may lead.

I’ve never been one for making New Year’s resolutions. When I have tried, they’ve almost always crashed and burned in a very short time. I have consolation in that I’m not the only one who does this. That being said, I’m feeling led to form some new habits as we turn the corner into 2015. In lieu of the term resolution, let’s just call them goals, shall we?

For the past day or so I’ve felt something lying kind of heavy on my heart. I’m currently reading a book by Max Lucado, and as I’m reading I’m finding myself questioning my selection of reading material as of late. Sarah often asks me if I have fed my soul recently, and to be brutally honest I’ve done very little of that for a while now. So, one of my goals going forward is to take much better care of my soul. After all, it does need a lot of care and, yes, feeding.

Another goal of mine is related to the first. I have been seriously neglecting my spiritual needs. This is very easy to do; after all, distractions abound in daily life. But this is no excuse, and I’ve got to do better. If I’m out of sync spiritually, I’m completely out of sync. So, along with feeding my soul, I’m also going to strive to cultivate my inner spirituality. I realize that doing this will not be easy. It is as much of a discipline as physical exercise—something else I’m not great at, by the way. But one can learn new disciplines and new habits. Part of this process will be to work on doing much more writing. To that end, I will be utilizing this blog much more than I have been. My intent is to use it to chart my spiritual progress and to hold myself accountable. In addition, there may be some who will want to vicariously join me on this journey, and so much the better. I don’t know what form or structure this will take, if any. As I said, I have felt the tug on my heart about this for the past day or so, and I can’t ignore it. Something else I need to keep in mind is it doesn’t matter who reads, or even if nobody reads. The fact is I can and will, and it will be a good progress indicator for me.

How’s that for a preview of coming attractions? I’m feeling very strongly that this is something I really need to stick with, no matter how many distractions there are out there. So, with that, it’s onward and upward into 2015. Happy New Year! Let’s make it a great one!