First Things First


There are times when the writing flows. Times when the words comes so fast that no pen or keyboard can possibly capture them all. There are other times when the words come slow and steady, obediently lining up on the page line by line, sentence by sentence: page by page the work presses on to completion. Treasure these times.

Then there are times when the words do not come--writer's block we call it. Times when no matter how we try we cannot write. Times when the muse and indeed the ability to write a simple sentence deserts us. While we do not necessarily treasure such times, we can at least take comfort in the fact that what we are feeling has a name.

Sometimes we are in a more uncomfortable situation. The words come but we have no time to write. When we do write all of our writing is diverse, confused unfocused. In such times both our art and our living suffers.

Now the obvious solution is to simplify our lives, and put first things first. This is so obvious but so difficult. Often there are many many “first things" in our lives, all with legitimate claims to top priority, all with voices are more insistent or clamoring than the small voice of our muse. What to do?

What to do?

Our muse is the small voice, small but insistent, urging us to write. Even when it cannot be heard above the din it continues to disturb, to nag, to insist. Unanswered it quite literally will drive us mad. The bottom line is writers must write. Writing must be our “first thing.”

If you would be a writer you must write. You must shut out all the insistent, clamoring seductive voices that seek to call you away from writing. To be a writer you must be uncompromising in this; uncompromising and ruthless.

Writers must write