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amwriting, author, falling off the wagon, first draft, inspiration, labor, labor of love, motivation, perseverance, push through, wagon, work, writer, writing, writing schedule
“Find a job you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life.” ~ Confucious
Quite an inspiring declaration. Too bad “inspiring” is not synonymous with “truth.”
I love to write. The process of weeding out an idea, then turning that idea into hundreds of pages, is beyond rewarding.
But make no mistake about it. It’s work. And writing is never harder than when there’s a break in the process.
Circumstances in the past couple of weeks have pulled me away from a consistent writing schedule. And while much of it was beyond my control, I still fretted daily in the back of my mind: “You need to write. You need to write.”
Now that I’m free to get back to my current work in progress, the chasm between what needs to be done and what I think I can do seems to have widened a mile per day spent not writing. I agonize over closing the gap.
Getting back into a rhythm will be a grueling process; a mental strain akin to standing up, dusting off, and limping to catch a wagon that I fell from, before it picks up speed and barrels down the trail without me. The prospect of giving up becomes as tempting as a cold drink in a dry desert.
All the more reason to push through.
Writing is a part of me. I do it because I love it, but it’ll always be work. Whoever coined the phrase “labor of love,” knew what they were talking about.
Now I’ve got a wagon to catch.
Your turn: Do you love what you do? Has it ever been hard for you, despite how much you enjoy it?
