I’ve never had the luxury, or excuse, of writer’s block since for over ten years, all my writing had a deadline. My favorite definition of journalism is “making something complex, clear, quickly, for people who have other things to do.” Boy! I could take that apart for the next five paragraphs, but I want to focus on the word “quickly.”
All the years I wrote for The Good News Magazine taught me that, short of death, I had to have something printable for my editor by a certain date. Once, I brought my ailing husband and my computer with me to the emergency room because I was on deadline.
However, the writer’s block excuse would tempt me when I was assigned a topic I didn’t care for.
For most kids, Christian camps promise fun and adventure. You would think I enjoyed writing about them, but they left me cold. Don’t get me wrong, I love nature. I love looking at it, sitting amid woods or along a lake shore, resting in an Adirondack chair, gazing at the treetops. Did you notice none of that involved moving a gull-darned inch? Why anyone thinks a zip line is anything but terrifying is beyond me. My friend broke her arm while she zipped along one of those things.
Why would I want to write about this? Inspiration had nothing to do with it. There was no time to claim the muse had abandoned me. But reading my article, you’d never know what I really thought.
It’s not just writers who need an external force to accomplish a goal. Sometimes, we need something greater than ourselves, a motivation we can’t ignore, to get us non-stop on the road to accomplishment. Perhaps it’s fear of failure, or a sense that others are depending on us. We barrel through, and in the end, wonder why we felt so powerless as we pondered our task and believed it was insurmountable.
Outside forces get me in front of my computer. BIC is writer shorthand for “butt in chair.” I’m currently working with an amazing writer/editor/friend (The Persnickety Proofreader), who took only a few days to format and tweak The Divine Meddler’s Second Edition, which I’ll re-publish with The Divine Anvil. Not only that, she introduced me to her cover artist, who already came up with a sample new cover.
Now, I’ve been “editing” The Divine Anvil for months. But with these two dynamos on board, I’m devoting hours each day to what I should have already accomplished.So that’s life-lesson number two. Overcoming challenges, or whatever is holding me back, sometimes needs an outside push.
Whether it’s a deadline or encouraging people, I succeed when I crash through those imagined mental blocks.
Now, if you will excuse me, I’ve got some editing to do.
