Live for it. Die for it.

Had a killer post planned for today.  All outlined in my head.  Woke up early to “get ‘er done.”  And then I went out to fetch the paper and everything changed.

Life is like that sometimes.

It wasn’t a headline that rocked me this morning.  It was a quote inserted above the headline that read, “I feel it draws on everything I’ve ever been or done or learned.  In this role, I get to draw on everything that I am.”  Below the headline, which isn’t relevant here, was a picture of man speaking into a microphone, with a solemn look on his face, as if he was telling his children about life.

And I thought, what a lucky man indeed.

This hit me like a ton of rejection slips.  Because that’s how I feel about my art.  Some days I hate it, but most days it makes me feel alive in a way that nothing else — avocation-wise… my partner and son always remind me that I’m very much alive — can.  It makes me remember the dark days of the past few years during which I felt I had nothing to make work for.  A feeling that is a close second to nothing to live for in terms of weight on the soul.

And so I’m back to the drawing board now.  Writing this blog about writing, , which if you’ve noticed— with the exception of this morning’s post — is really about much more than me.  As a blog should be.  I’d say  this is an instructional writing resource, because — again, with the exception of this morning’s post — I don’t really want to write about me.  I want to write about you.

That’s a lesson I’ve learned in time.  It’s not about me.  Never has been. Wish I’d have figured that out earlier.

But I digress, back to that newspaper quote.  Writing doesn’t become that significant a part in your life until you begin to take it seriously, to submit yourself to it and be vulnerable to the reality that it’s always bigger than you are.  It demands that you draw on everything you’ve ever been or done or learned.  Everything that you are.

And becomes, in doing so, everything you’ve ever dreamed of being.

Which makes us, as writers, very lucky folks indeed.