I almost didn’t write this post. No, seriously. I almost didn’t I’ve got so much going on right now that I thought that it would be easy to just let it slip by. No one would notice, right? It’s not like I get that much traffic and I think I’ve had one or two comments on these posts. Who would miss it if I skipped a week? Would you notice?

Odds are, no one would notice if I didn’t sit here and type up this post. This isn’t even what I had intended to write about this week.

This has nothing to do with confidence in my ability to type up a post. It has nothing to do with being afraid what others will think. This has everything to do with what I planned for this year. I had planned to treat my writing as a part-time job. That means doing it even when I don’t feel like doing it. I’m good at putting things off. I really am.

I’m sure you’re good at putting things off as well. It’s so easy to justify in my mind why I don’t need to do something. There’s always later. There’ll be more time tomorrow. I really want to watch this TV show. There’s this book I’ve been meaning to read. I’m behind on my podcast listening. The grass needs cutting, the bushes need trimming, the kid has this thing I need to go to.

Some things I got done this week that I didn’t want to get done because they interfered with MY time:

Mounted a surfboard for the Middle School to use in the advancement ceremony (Thank you Millican for helping!)

Recorded lines for J. Daniel Sawyer.

Wrote words in Of Gnomes and Dwarves every day

Wrote my daily blog post

Recorded and edited Episode 4 of Golden West

Went to my favorite daughter’s volleyball practices (every day)

Dealt with a personal issue that should be completely resolved in the coming weeks

Made hotel reservations for my favorite daughter’s last away game

I walked at least two miles four days this week.

I lifted weights almost every day this week.

There’s a lot of things that take up my time and take me away from doing the things I want to do and I didn’t want to do any of these (well, except writing on Of Gnomes and Dwarves) but the point is these things needed to be done. I have new toys to play with. I have more stories I want to write. I have books I’ve bought that I want to read. I have places to go to and people to go see.

I’ll get to them. I’ll have my down time. But I made commitments to other people, friends, family, schools. I need to uphold those commitments. I still need to get my day job done as well. There are only so many hours in the day and if I put something off, it’ll eat into my time just like it’ll eat into my brain. I can’t just let something slide. Just like this post. I can’t just let it slide. I’ve made a commitment to myself and to my readers. For all I know two people are reading this on a weekly basis, but that’s not the point.

The point is, in order to be a professional I need to first act like a professional. If I can’t hold up a schedule that I myself set with my own deadlines, then how would I ever be able to do it for someone that wants to pay me money to do this? I didn’t step into this lightly and I must take full responsibility to my fans and my readers. That means that even if I don’t want to write this post and I might complain about it taking away from my time, the point is, I need to do it.

I need to suck it up. I need to bite the bullet. I need to put on my big boy pants and get the job done.

It’s not always easy. No one ever said this would be easy. It would be so much easier to quit and give up. Nothing worth having is easy to obtain. If you want to be able to succeed as a writer, you need a schedule. I’ve said this many times before, but you need to lay down a schedule, write daily, track your progress, get encouragement from others if you need it. But by all means you need to start and you need to stick with it. You need to write when you’re not feeling it you need to write more when you are. You need to write when you’re sick, when you’re depressed, when you’re happy, when you feel like there’s no point in putting down any more words. You need to keep going.

I’m a writer. I don’t do this for the people who read this. Yes, that’s a great plus when I get feedback from someone. In the end I’m doing this for me. If I didn’t write this post, the only person that would notice, is me. I would let myself down. Sure I might hear from someone, but I would be the first to notice.

If you’re reading this, you mean the world to me. I hope you enjoy what I’m doing here. I hope you get something out of it. Just know that this is more for me than it is for you. If you want to be a writer, you need to write. I cannot express that enough. And speaking of writing…

Until Next Time!

WOO WOO!