A Moment in My Life – Thursday, October 15, 2020
“If you’re ever going to write, it’s now or never. Just do it!” That was the last writing pep talk Mark gave me. At the time he said that, I didn’t take it well. His intentions were good. He always had my best interest at heart. I knew that, but at that moment, I was annoyed by it more than anything else because I was so not anywhere near ready to write. Writing takes a certain mindset. Many variables come into play before one could apply that chair glue and write. When he nudged me to write, that was not one of those times.
I knew Mark was right, and like him, I, too, wanted to get my writer’s life going, but we were facing so many obstacles at the time. I mean big things! We had his illness, for starters, while dealing with significant issues from both sides of our families. We recently got laid off a month apart from each other. I took an extended trip to spend time with my mother, who was losing her cancer battle. To top that off, I was trying to overcome burnout from the stressful last year at my job amongst everything else. None of these variables allowed me to consider working on my writer’s life. His nudging became a sore spot for us.
With Mark’s health’s rapid deterioration, my writing dilemma was on the back-burner until months after his demise. I can’t say that I forgot his words because of my undertakings. They were always at the back of my mind. It didn’t help that Mark’s intuition was almost always spot on, and that added another layer to my already overfilled stressful demeanor. Regardless of how crazy my days were, his words haunted me. What if he were right? What if every moment I delayed writing that meant I would never do it, never make it as a writer? Did I need this extra stress?
It took me over a year to acclimate to my new status quo and take care of the many tasks and situations I needed to deal with before considering my writer’s life. In the end, it was Mark’s pep talk that nudged me forward—the fear that he might be right. After a few failed false starts, on May 11, 2020, I launched my writing career. Since the launch, I have met every writing goal I set for myself—posting my blog and short stories on my website every week. Even with this success, every morning, I continue to wonder if I could write. So far, God has answered my prayers, and He has blessed me with the ability to write each day. Many mornings I have no clue what I would write that day, but as soon as I sit down to write, there it was—a topic, a title, content, and I am on my way to writing. Each day, God has allowed me to complete my day’s writing. This truly tells me that I am on the right path and that this is what I was meant to do.
On August 4, I began my daily column, A Moment in My Life, and yesterday I wrote my 50th column. Since May, I have written 17 blogs, 51 columns, a short fiction, and a new novel brewing. Even so, every day, I am humbled and wonder if I could do it all over again. Each day God allows me to complete a piece of writing, I am grateful. I don’t take any of this for granted.
Even now, Mark continues to be my biggest encourager, and I am thankful to him for nudging me forward with his, “Just do it!”