Get Out of My Way, I’m Trying to Write!

By: Ebonye Gussine Wilkins

What keeps you from writing? 

A lot of people mention things such as work, familial obligations or just plain exhaustion for reasons that they cannot sit down and write the way they want to. Of course, those things are important; you don’t want to lose your job or abandon your family for the sake of writing. But at some point, if you want to be a writer, you have to sit down and write.

A lot of writers wait for inspiration to hit. They aren’t in the mood to write so they don’t. The atmosphere isn’t quite right, a favorite TV show is airing tonight, or thoughts haven’t quite settled in the brain yet are all common excuses why a writer does not write.

Well, stop it.

More often than not, you are the reason you aren’t writing. Things will never be perfect to write, so you should not expect it to be that way. Just because there is traffic isn’t an excuse not to go to work. Neither is rain, or snow, or sleet or hail (especially if you are a mail carrier). You don’t forget to eat because it isn’t convenient, at least I hope not. You don’t forget to fill up your car with gas because you have to drive to the gas station. You just do what you have to do because it needs to be done. Nobody else is writing for you, so what are you waiting for?

If you aren’t writing, then you aren’t a writer by any stretch of the imagination. If you write and write all the time, no one can dispute that you aren’t a writer. Whether you are a good writer or a bad writer is not the case. If you devote yourself to writing, then you are a writer.

So, go tell yourself to get out of your own way so you can write whatever you need to write. No one is stopping you but you.

What are your excuses for not writing? What are you going to do to combat that?