writing is tough

Writing is more work than you would think.

Take this post, for example. I’m writing it because I’ve only posted once this week and I really need to be posting more often than that. This blog serves a double function for me. It is, first and foremost, a place for me to speak frankly about faith. But it is also a venue for me to get in some writing practice. (Yep, you’re always reading a first draft here at disciple 13. Lucky you. This one, incidentally, is a doozie.)

See, I’m an aspiring writer. I hear, or read, rather, that aspiring writers have to write. That’s what Anne Lamont says, and she’s written books and stuff (stuff being articles and other stuff), so she seems to know what she’s talking about. Or writing about as the case may be. Anyway, she says that you have to write and you have to write often, whether or not you feel like it. So at the moment I’m writing because I think I should be, not so much because I have a soapbox or an agenda or even a point.

Not encouraging to you, the reader, I know, but you've come this far and it's a short post. You're pot-committed now. Might as well see it through.

Basically, this post is about writing when you don’t feel like writing because that’s how I feel now. I know—doesn’t make much sense. On top of that, this probably isn’t even “good writing”, but it is writing and I sat down not wanting to write but determined to write anyway. And here you are reading, so you can’t argue that I did not write something. Clearly I did. In that sense, this post is a raving success.

Unfortunately, not much of a point is being made here, so in that sense, this post is pretty worthless. To you, anyway. To me it is a post of victorious dedication, having risen above my own laziness and complacency and having found the inner fortitude to pound away 400 words or so, even though I’d just as soon log off and go to bed.

In summation: this post took work, though you’d never know it. It’s not worth much to you, but worth something to me. Unfortunately, the value can’t really be shared by you as it is valuable only to me because I'm the author. You might find slight value or inspiration in it if you’re a writer yourself, but only limited value as this isn’t a terribly inspirational piece, due largely to the fact that this is a perfect example of mediocre writing.

But it is writing. And writing is tough.