one thing in 2013: WRITE!

My eighth grade English teacher took me out in the hall during our creative writing segment one day, to urge me to continue writing for the rest of my life.  “You have a gift, and it is important that you practice it.”  It was a fun and exciting thing to hear.  I was the girl in grade school who skipped recess many days to sit in the classroom with her nose in a book (FYI, that’ll cause a negative report to your parents at teacher conference time.)  Everywhere I went, as I watched the world around me, I framed sentences in my head, telling the story of what I saw as if it were in a book.  One of my most fun memories from grade school was when we learned how to construct dialogue between characters.  I read compulsively, unable to NOT read the back of the cereal box at breakfast, greedily checking out 3, 4, even 5 books at a time at the library, thumbing through every magazine in the house, reading it whether the material was relevant to my age and stage of life or not, reading every newspaper, billboard sign, ad…ANYTHING that crossed my vision, had to be read.  Had to be examined.  Had to be possibly re-written in my head, in my own words.

All through high school and college, other teachers and professors had the same conversation with me.  You are a writer!  You must nurture that!  Always I was honored.  Always I wondered…how can anybody NOT write?  I don’t write because someone makes me.  I write because I have to.  Because the noise in my head gets so loud and writing it down is the only way to let it out.  Because the practice of writing shows me things I know, that I had no idea I knew at all.  Because the act of stringing letters into words into sentences into paragraphs into themes and lessons and stories is simply, for me, one of the greatest pleasures in life.  It’s fun when people read it, and awesome when people like it, and incredible when people say so, and even better when people write back in a “continuing the conversation” kind of way…but even if no one ever read another word I wrote, I’d still have to write. 

I’ve been paid, from time to time, for my writing.  That didn’t make me a writer.  I’ve been published variously.  That didn’t make me a writer.  I’ve had email lists and blogs and penpals.  None of that made me a writer.  I don’t need anyone else to choose the title of writer for me.  It’s not up to anyone else.  It’s just who I am.  End of story. 

It’s been about 25 years since college.  There are no more teachers to tell me to nurture my craft.  Still, I am regularly encouraged.  Some of you reading this today are my regular encouragers, sending me comments and compliments and asking when is the book happening?

The truth is, though, that I am pretty lazy about my writing.

Is there a book in me?  Sure there is.  Probably more than one.  Probably a lot of ’em.  Will they ever happen?  Not at the rate I am going.  This is because I write when I feel like it.  When I am very stirred or when I can’t figure something out or when everything is not distracting me or when I feel like I have time.  I force my writing to be squeezed in *around* my life.  That’s a pretty crappy thing to do with what is perhaps my greatest gift. 

I started to be increasingly convicted about my laziness when my editor at a website to which I was a semi-regular contributor offered to write a book with me – and I couldn’t find the discipline to do it.  But that was…five years ago?  Something like that.  So increasing conviction didn’t do it for me.

“Pursuing my writing craft” has shown up on new year’s resolutions lists regularly.  Resolutions haven’t gotten me there.

Stephen King, in his great book “On Writing,” hammers the writer to produce something – anything – regularly.  This past year, I have noted many other writers hammering similarly.  In approaching 2013, I’ve been sure that I need to move beyond wishing and dreaming and feeling guilty and thinking someday. 

It’s time to move from laziness to commitment.  That same editor who once invited me to write with him has come a long way since his offer.  It’s been fun, watching his journey from afar.  Today he blogged the answer to the questions he couldn’t have known I was asking:  how do I frame a year dedicated to writing?  What does it look like?  Do I need to set a number of words or minutes per day?  Do I need to work on a specific project?  Does it have to be a certain time of day? 

The simple answer is:  just write.  Every day.  Just write.  No crying about lack of time or failure of inspiration…no excuses. 

So that’s it!  That’s my “one thing” for 2013:  I will write.  Every day.

For those of you who know my regular daily habits, I will NOT be counting the following as “writing” for the purposes of this commitment:

• writing my grat list (that’s prayer, not writing, and it’s something I already do almost without fail daily)
• any work-related writing (most of my days include some kind of minutes or reports or letters – but that’s business, not my passion)
• letters to friends (that’s maintaining friendships, not writing)

My writing will be here, mostly.  If I write elsewhere, like at my naked dieting blog or on a piece of paper, I’ll still report in here, to say how I’ve kept my promise to myself one more time.  If you’re not much of a blog checker but want to follow along, there’s a spot you can subscribe to get it in your email, over there on the left side of the page.

Do YOU have a “one thing” for 2013?  I’m dying to hear about it…

much love

k