Getting Back in the Saddle

Found at quotefancy.com

- a post by Jeanna Mason Stay 

I've been in such a funk. This year started off wonderfully. I had a goal to write everyday. Maybe not a lot, but at least something. And for several months, I was doing great. Not perfect--I missed a couple of days--but really well. 

And then, something hit. I'm still not sure what it was, and I'm definitely not over it yet. It's been like walking uphill through sludge. I just haven't cared. About much of anything, really. I've wondered, am I depressed? Am I just being lazy? What is wrong with me? 

And the wonderful little checkmarks that I used to make to keep track of days I wrote ... They just tapered off. I haven't even looked at the tracking app I have for weeks. Just thinking about it makes me feel tense. Pretty much the entire month of August, a black hole of nothing. 

But here I am again, trying to get back in the saddle. There are two really amazing anthology projects that I want to be involved in, but that takes actually, you know, writing. So I'm starting small, with a blog post about essentially nothing, and working up from there. 

It's hard to start up again after you've lost all momentum. It's hard to feel like you're back at the beginning. But I recently read this statement from C. S. Lewis that I think sums it up: 

"You can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending."

What do you all do when you feel like you're back at the beginning with no progress made? How do you get back up and start again?

Because of the Struggle

Cursed runner weeds.

- a post by Jeanna Mason Stay

Today I was out pulling weeds in a tiny patch of my yard. They were the kind of weeds that send out runners that then put down more roots and just keep on going. I had let them go far too long and they were huge and well-established. To tug them up, I had to yank and yank and yank all along their lengths until the whole system came up. I thought to myself, I hate these weeds. I wish they didn’t exist. There is absolutely no purpose to them.

And then, immediately, I began to wonder—what if there is a purpose to them?

For me, the answer came swiftly. They were there for the struggle. That twenty or thirty minutes of hard work pulling up weeds, with my fingers in the dirt, making my little patch of garden lovely again—that time was hard, but in the end, I loved the sense of accomplishment. I loved the progress. I loved that I had done something hard.

I was recently asked to do something that is going to be incredibly hard for me. Quite frankly, my first reaction was I don’t want to do this. I wish it didn’t exist. I can’t do it. I’m still struggling with it, though I absolutely know it’s the right thing to do. But just like pulling weeds, it’s going to be hard. But I think the struggle is part of the point. If we never struggle, we never know what we’re capable of. We never get the powerful feeling that comes of getting through something that is difficult.

A friend recently told me it had been forever since she last wrote, but she wanted to start—and she was scared. She is a confident, awesome person, and she has tried and is good at so many things. But she’s afraid that in this she will fail. So to her I ask, what can you learn about yourself if you try? What if it’s not about “success” (and who defines “success” anyway)? What if it’s about discovering new possibilities? What if it’s about the struggle?

Last month I gave this suggestion: Write something you’re not good enough to write yet. That is something that I’ve really needed to remember lately as I’ve struggled with a story that is almost working but just not quite. I’m just not good enough to write it yet, but I’m still trying.

But I pulled up the weeds, and their purpose was the struggle. I will do the hard thing, and I will grow in that struggle. I will finish the story and I will submit it to the places I’m writing it for, and they will probably reject it, but I will get better at writing, and my next story will be better because I tried.

Because of the struggle.

Boring Secondary Characters - Line Up Here

By Lacey Gunter

As my kids and I were debating this afternoon about whether a certain character in a book we are reading is about to die in order to save a loved one, my son asked me "Why do characters have to die? Why can't they all just live and be happy?"

It was a simple enough question to answer, and it didn't take much explanation to convince my son that conflict, adversity and challenges make stories interesting and compelling. But reflecting on the question afterward, there seems to be an important life lesson here.

Most of us would like to think of ourselves as the hero or heroine in the story of our life. Perhaps a few might like to be considered as the villain. But none of us wants to be thought of as a boring side character with little importance to the story. Yet in the course of our life we are often prone to ask ourselves, why me? Why do I have to face this challenge? Why did God have to give me this adversity? We may even pray to God and ask, for the challenge to be taken away or easily solved for us. We just want everything to go the way it is supposed to and everyone to just live and be happy. Wow, doesn't that reek of boring secondary character, or what?

So here's where we look to literature for another important life lesson. Stop asking why me, why God please just take this away. Start praying for knowledge, blessings or opportunities to learn that amazing something special about you that will help you overcome your adversity.

I'm not saying we should go chasing down trouble. But at the same time, let's not cower to the margins of our book of life hoping to avoid it. This is your opportunity to grow and demonstrate just how awesome you can be.  Challenges and adversity aren't just what make a great story, they're what make us great. Be the heroine, not the boring secondary character.