How to Support a Writer
Posted on November 15, 2013, 9:52 pm By
Lean on Me

Image by Caleb Roenigk via Flickr/Creative Commons

 

I can think of at least three things I’d rather be doing right now instead of writing a blog post: exercising, sleeping, or watching a movie. Instead, I’m writing a post that I have accepted will be awful, because I made a commitment.

It’s not that I’m at that point where blogging every day just got hard. Wait, I guess I am, because this is the first day I’ve not wanted to do it, and doing things you don’t want to do are always hard.

The night I decided I would post something because a writer writes, I wanted to write. I wanted to write more than my sleep-deprived strength level would allow. But tonight, I don’t want to write anything. I don’t want to tackle the memoir scene I just described to a friend over the phone. I don’t want to start the analysis of last night’s Scandal or of the story I heard on Q this week about a 19-year-old artist in Britain whose next performance is losing his virginity on stage in his first homosexual sex act. I don’t want to write the head notes due Monday for the document project that’s 70 percent of my grade.

This is the point on my discipline journey that I feared, the point where what I love becomes a chore because I’m doing it to keep from going back on my word, not because I have any desire at all to do what I promised to do. I expected it to come a little later in the process, but here we are at the midpoint, just two weeks and one day into a challenge that takes at least 21 days to solidify itself into a habit, and I would love nothing more right now than to quit.

So why am I posting instead of exercising, sleeping or watching a movie? Three reasons: 1) Only one nearby gym is open; 2) it’s too cold and wet to go to the gym, or to find a Redbox kiosk for a movie; 3) a friend told me to blog. I made the mistake of telling a few people I would post every day in November, and now at least one of them wants to hold me accountable. I told him over the phone tonight I didn’t want to blog but I’m supposed to post something every day for 30 days. He said, “Write your blog and call me back.”

The nerve.

And I guess, the blessing, because here I am about to hit “publish” and getting one step closer to my writing goals. Even in this most solitary profession, I still need support.

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4 comments Categories: best of, Life, Writing Life Tags:

4 thoughts on “How to Support a Writer”

  1. You have my support.

    You may not realize this but you wrote a great post, not an awful post.

    I didn’t want to write a post Friday or Saturday night either, because I’d had two super long days, packed with work and responsibilities. But I sat down a wrote because I made a commitment to myself. In the same way you made a commitment to yourself.

    Writers write. Push through. Can you totally do this.

    And you’ll be rewarded for sticking to your vision. Maybe not today, but one day. Not sure how, maybe it will just be a reminder that one night was the going was tough you persevered and that’s enough to push you through a bigger wall for something that matters more in the big scheme of things.

    Little victories, like writing when we don’t feel like, lead to success in some way.

    Comrades-with-pens (or keyboards).

    Reply

  4. Thanks Mary Lee and Sheree for your support! I couldn’t keep up the commitment, but I’m back and I don’t feel bad about it.

    Reply

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