If you’ve followed this blog for any length of time, you’ve probably realized that I blog five days a week. That’s a minimum of 20 days per month — usually 22 or 23. And that’s over 260 days per year. That’s a lot of blogging.

Oftentimes, I get my blog posts written a few days in advance. I have an ongoing blog calendar, where I map out what I want to blog about on what day, and sticking to that is a huge help. But then there are some days when I haven’t gotten my pre-planned blog written and don’t have time to tackle that topic, or days when I’d left a blank on my calendar, and I wind up staring at a blank screen in the morning, realizing that I have to blog something. Quickly.

Of course that’s when the words just won’t come. Those are the times when it’s most important to make myself write something anyway.

For years before I was a photographer — for almost my entire life — I was a writer. I’ve dealt with my fair share of writers’ block. Writers’ block in no way means that you’re unable to write anything; it means that you’re unable to write anything that you feel is inspired. Pushing through that, writing anyway, is an exercise in patience and frustration. It’s also one of the best things you can do to force yourself to succeed. I’m not just talking about writing anymore, either. There are so, so many times in our lives when we’ll have life block. You know, that listless feeling of “I don’t want to even try to do anything important right now because I know it won’t succeed.” Giving up on getting the important things, the hard things, the meaningful things done is the surest way to make sure your life becomes stagnant. Instead of carrying yourself forward like a determined river current bound for the sea, you become a bobbing piece of flotsam caught up in someone else’s current, or worse, thrust out of the current and left wallowing in on the bank.

Perhaps that sounds a little melodramatic. I think it’s simply a nature-proven theory. You are the current, or you’re ruled by a current.

That’s why I sat down at my computer this morning, determined to write something worthwhile, even when at first the words wouldn’t come. I’m preaching to myself today. And I have so much more than simply blogging on my mind. No matter how often I would rather turn my back on the hard work and do something I know will be easy to accomplish, I can’t let myself. Not if I want my life to be a strong, sure current. Not if I value the opportunities I’ve been blessed with.

Danny talks about big stones almost daily. I think about rivers and momentum. Whatever your analogy, stick to it. Make things happen. Write when you have writers’ block, even if you throw away your paper as soon as if you’ve filled it with words. What you accomplish today isn’t as important as what you set yourself up to achieve tomorrow and the next day and for the rest of your life.

~ Laura