When I first started blogging, a whopping 3 months ago, I was excited. I was motivated to write each week and eager to find time to make it happen. It was the beginning of my journey and, as I've said before, I love beginnings!
And then for no particular reason, it no longer felt like the beginning. It felt like work.
That is probably because it is work. But there are times when the work is rewarding and fulfilling, rather than tedious and draining. Writing had gone from being a task that was nourishing my soul to something I was avoiding like the plague.
Why?
If I am allowing myself to make excuses, I would say it is because it is winter and I hate winter. Or that I've been sick and I need to give myself time to rest. Or that the new season of Sherlock is out so priorities clearly needed to be adjusted.
I also might say I need to cut myself some slack. I work hard and I deserve to take time off. It's honorable that I just try. And that I will write again when I have something to write about.
To be honest, this is exactly what I did. I made excuses and told myself that once those excuses were resolved, I'd go back to writing.
And then, while working with a student last week, who wasn't doing his writing, I stopped making excuses. I asked the student why he wasn't writing and he listed off his excuses, most of which were the same as mine. He was tired and uninspired and he just didn't feel like doing the work.
I would typically launch into my standard teacher speech. "You don't feel like it?"...But who was I to talk? I hadn't been doing the work either.
So instead we talked about the dangers of "waiting until we feel like it." We joked about the things we would never do if we waited until we felt like it. I would never clean my apartment. And he would never practice his math facts. We both agreed that once we did it though, we felt better. I like having a clean apartment and he likes not having to draw arrays to solve multiplication problems, but did we feel like putting in the work? Not really. We did it anyway.
But when it comes to writing, it seemed like a pretty legitimate excuse. How can I write if I have nothing to write about. Writer's block is a thing, right? Wrong. According to Kevin Ashton, author of my favorite book How to Fly a Horse, "the only thing a writer suffering from writer's block cannot do is write something they think is good." The solution: write something bad. Or in other words: write anyway.
So that is what I decided to do. I'm writing anyway. To prove to myself and my students that good writing does not come from strikes of genius, but from an accumulation of hard work.
Sometimes you just need to stop making excuses. Be Nike. And Just Do It!
