Just Do It!

I'm realizing that, if one seriously wants to be a writer---one who finishes what one starts---it is absolutely necessary to stop thinking about writing and start doing it! For me, today, that meant not doing my course planning first, but putting that aside to write. Strange how guilty it feels to make time for writing, as if it's some luxurious enterprise akin to basking on a beach! Maybe I have to start thinking of it as real work. Sure, I don't get paid for it---yet, and maybe never---but there are some things a person simply must do (such as eat, sleep, breathe). And, for me, there is "write"! If this is one of the ways God has called me to serve Him, then I must start devoting an adequate amount of time to honing this craft! How easy it is to forget that. So, here's to just doing the thing and not feeling bad about it!

Resolving to Write

With a new year always comes the need to resolve to do better, to take on more, to accomplish unfinished tasks. This year, one of my resolutions is to make time for writing. Here's something C.S. Lewis said. I have these words on my office wall and periodically look at them for that so-needed nudge to get down to work: "If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavourable. Favourable conditions never come" ("Learning in War-time, The Weight of Glory).

I know from past experiences that resolutions which lack concreteness never materialize. So, with a goal to actually sticking to this, I'm going to set down a couple of actual ways I intend to be more serious about this call to the writing life. Here's what I've come up with:

• I resolve to finish my research for The Company of the White Stag (I currently have three great books at my disposal which are full of invaluable material: 1700: Scenes from London Life by Maureen Waller; Restoration: Charles II and His Kingdoms by Tim Harris; and Supremacy and Survival: How Catholics Endured the English Reformation by Stephanie A. Mann.)
• I resolve to finish editing my latest draft of The Company of the White Stag
• I resolve to finish my Children's Literature course by mid-year and submit at least one story to a publisher
• I resolve to enter at least one writing competition this year
• I resolve to read more good literature so as to better hone my craft

Part of the call of being a Christian writer is, of course, the privilege of offering our writing back to the Lord. I hope to meditate on that more this year and to become more intentional in my work. If this is a vocation, it needs to be treated as such; it needs to be nurtured.

What resolutions do you have for your writing? How can you become more intentional in the living out of the writing vocation this year?