Spring has Sprung

Now, I'll have to make time to write.

Spring has sprung, effectively ending my 4-month writing hiatus from real work. I spent today on a tractor. Tomorrow morning I’ve got another fifteen acres to finish strip tilling before I head off to Nashville, GA, to pick up a cargo trailer bound for Ohio. I’ll leave Georgia Saturday morning with it, stop somewhere in Kentucky Saturday night, then deliver it just north of Columbus before I head over to Indiana. There, I’ll pick up a travel trailer that’s destined for Tampa, Florida. And when I get back home, I’ll be wanted on a tractor again.

It’s been so easy to focus on my writing since I made the commitment to write full time back in November. I launched my new career with a week at the South Porch Artist Residency, in Summerville, SC. Then, came back home with little to do for the winter except write. It’s been absolutely wonderful! It took me a while, but now I even feel like a writer. I don’t have any problem telling people, “I’m a Writer,” when they ask what I do.

But now it’s back to the real world. My inner artist’s fantasy island is sinking… The savings I put aside to jump start my writing career is spent. So now I’ve got to go back to work, work. Now the real challenge begins— Now, I’ll have to make time to write.

So far so good. I’ve moved my alarm back to 6 am, I’d disarmed that one with the stupid time change a few weeks ago. Man I wish they’d quit that shit. I’ve also dictated oodles of thoughts, and writing ideas on my voice recorder while driving. I even seem to be more productive with the little time I do have to write. Never missing an opportunity, I’m constantly stopping in the middle of a task here at home to type up a few hundred words.

I’m acting on the advice of the greats– Henry David Thoreau said, “Write while the heat is in you… The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with.”

Will I be able to keep exceeding 10k words a week like I’d done many times this past winter? No, probably not. But I do think I can routinely hit my 5k words per week goal I’ve set for myself. Writers, write. And I am a Writer, so writing I will do.

“Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us get up and go to work.” -Stephen King

So I’ll use these other jobs as inspiration! I love to write these personal essays, and I find all of these essay topics from day to day life. As a Writer, I’m always writing. Everything is material. This will be my mindset. I will do the work. All of it. ‘I am more than I seem to be, all of the world’s strength and power rests inside me.’ I can do this💪

“Just write every day of your life. Read intensely. Then see what happens. Most of my friends who are put on that diet have very pleasant careers.” -Ray Bradbury

Thanks for reading! How do you make time to do the things you love? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

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