No More Excuses…

So, it’s been so long since I’ve written anything here… I’d go check but I’d probably get depressed about not writing even more than I already am.

But, I remember when I set aside the blogging to concentrate on school work. It was a good idea because the amount of work I was doing was a lot. Four classes a semester and two of those (on average) were writing classes and the other two tended to be literature classes.

However, all that came to an end back in December. That’s when I graduated from UCF with my Bachelor of Arts in English. And I did that one day shy of the two-year mark from graduating with my Associate of Arts. While holding down a full-time job.

I’m pretty sure that somewhere along the line I stopped having a life. Or my life became school work. Or… you know, it’s pretty funny that when you don’t think about things, how things just move along without you.

But, I promised myself after I graduated I would take a bit of time off and figure out what life without the constant pressure of school looked like. Can I tell you, it looks like disorganized chaos. It has amazed me how, now that my life has all this free time attached to it I feel busier than I did when I was in school.

There aren’t any deadlines, nothing I have to get done, no project I have to plan my life around to make sure I get it in on time… and it’s that absence that is screaming so loudly it’s deafening.

A friend of mine told me I need to get back in school because I need it. I scoffed when he said it. I’m not scoffing so much now. I thrive with the pressure. I love the stress. I need those imposed deadlines to do the crazy 2500 word writing sprees that I just have to get done.

Or do I?

I probably don’t. But, in the lack of those things, I haven’t quite figured out how to implement my own so that they carry the same weight. Which creates a different sort of pressure.

Now I have the time to work on all those books and stories that I had to push off in order to concentrate on the schoolwork I was paying thousands of dollars for. It was a great excuse. So great.

Now that excuse is gone and it’s just me staring at a blinking cursor when I do finally take the time. Or coming up with some excuse to not write because…

Because the fear is overwhelming.

Another friend of mine told me,

“Everyone wants to be a published author. Not everyone will sit down and write the book.”

When she said that, it stung. Because I want to be. And I recognized myself in that last part, a little too much.

But the good news… yep, there’s good news (even if I’m forcing myself to say it)… is that I got about half of a book done while in college. It’s a collection of short stories that still has some work to do, but hopefully, I’ll get back to it soon enough and finish it.

Then there are the stories I pushed aside. I’m being encouraged by my wife and a few friends to start writing those again. I’ll probably get to that in the next few days.

And I have submitted three stories in the last month. Two for publication, one to a contest. And even if I don’t win, that’s something, right?

I keep telling myself 2018 is the year of change. I’m hoping I change that whole “excuse” thing. Because as I have said for years, “Nobody cares about your excuses.”

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