Oh man…I’ve been a very naughty blogger lately, haven’t I? I’m terribly sorry for the lack of updates lately. I had quit my job to help my son with school since he had to be remote this semester (knock on wood it only needs to be one semester) and I’ve been so physically and emotionally exhausted I’ve had no energy to do much of anything that I committed to doing.
So, what does this have to do with sledding? Well, much like sledding, writing for me feels like being a little kid going sledding with my Dad. There was this gigantic hill just off the I-75 freeway that he would take me and my best friend Meg to when there was tons of snow and the weather wasn’t too cold. There were many ways to get up there, some sides steep and some sides more gradual, but all sides led to the peak of this hill. Just as there are many ways to get up there, there are just as many ways to slide down. My favorite route down was this treacherously steep section of the hill that sent you careening towards the freeway. You always stopped before doom, even if you were convinced on the way down it was going to be your last sled ride ever.
One thing I did find frustrating about sledding was that ascending the hill became more and more difficult each time I wanted to sled down. Even when switching to a less steep climb, I found my desire to go down the hill sink to the point of complete giving up, resulting in my foolish rolling down the hill when I was only halfway up. My Dad always used to laugh at me when I did this and, instead of chastising me for giving up, he would insist that we race. Downhill. To participate (and win the Skittles), I had to get up to the top again and throw myself into the wind, hoping my tiny body would beat out a man who had been sledding for forty years. Don’t worry; he let us tie every time with the tiebreaker being a snowball fight.
Writing when you have a hill of work in front of you can seem daunting, if not impossible. Sometimes you need a reminder of why you are writing: is it a passion project? Is it to put food on the table? Are you saving for an adventure with the earnings of your writing? Writing for me is a passion and I feel it is a disservice to myself to not do it when I can. I can’t get the thrill of finishing a chapter or engaging with comments on the blog if I am not doing the writing.
Sometimes, you just don’t feel like writing. It feels awful when you know you need/want to write but you can’t. In times like that, I find incentivizing writing or performing important peripheral tasks can help to clear the mental space needed to get you back up on that hill. I like to make special playlists for certain scenes, characters and plot hooks that require me to go out and find new music. Maybe I’ll buy a new pen and notebook to write or sketch in to clear out some mental creativity. I will rearrange my office space, clean my room and fold laundry to take some of the tasks off my list to free up some emotional labor for writing. Just because you aren’t physically writing doesn’t mean you can’t make efforts in other areas that can improve, foster or help with your writing.
Lastly, sometimes we need to remind ourselves of the value of the climb. This isn’t some of that “hustle is life” nonsense. When you force yourself up that hill, your: legs get stronger, arms get stronger, core and back muscles develop, and your stamina and constitution get a bit bigger and stronger. Sometimes, you have to pull your dinky little sled up that hill so the next time you go sledding, you can do it longer. You can take more dangerous trips down, and reach steep heights you may not have been able to reach before. Let your writing be trash. Write the trash. Keep the trash. You have no idea what kind of gems you could find in there later, and it’s a good gauge to indicate where your writing currently is and where it could go. Drag your damn sled. I promise, there are Skittles on the other side somewhere.
I encourage all of you out there to keep going. The world feels so crazy anymore, so what are you waiting for? Suddenly, living your dreams shouldn’t be the craziest thing you have heard today…
– V. Raylean
A Portly Bard's Stage 