Never give up without a fight.

The day I stopped writing (this would be almost 7 years ago) was with the deliberate intention of never putting a word to paper again.

Photo by Jeremy Perkins on Unlash I was tired of the stops and starts, mixed advice, "almost" projects, half-finished manuscripts, and my own sense of boredom. I felt there was never enough time to write. And the worst part is that I became convinced that writing was a frivolous waste of time.

Somehow I got the idea that I should spend every moment of my life building servers or learning about Cisco networking or studying for certification tests or, well , anything other than writing. Doing these tasks was more "real" than writing could be...

It was a difficult and quite negative moment for me. I've read enough other writers to know that many of us have been through even worse while building our careers. I mean, let's be honest, there are more reasons not to write than there are reasons to write.

Most "reasons" are excuses. Some are legit. A legitimate reason would be a job loss or a real family crisis. My experience tells me that anything else is doubt disguised as purpose.

I learned the hard way that if you're destined to write, the stress of avoiding or ignoring it will eat you alive.

How did I overcome this?

For years I ignored my feelings. I told myself all kinds of stories about how it didn't matter if I wrote or not. I thought no one expected me to produce anyway.

The great emptiness that invaded me sometimes MUST have another source, right? It certainly couldn't happen because I wasn't putting words to paper. It was too silly to think about it.

I think I mentioned before that depression is a problem for me. I assumed the void was just another fight with my old enemy. It took me a while to realize that not writing was eliminating one of my coping mechanisms.

The printed word (reading and writing) helped me defend myself. In a way, at least for me, writing is medicine. Each time I forget that I am suffering.

As I am stubborn, realizing the problem and then doing something about it was a real battle. The person I asked to be my mentor abandoned me. No one offered encouragement or even noticed. That meant that was my problem to solve.

I had to ask myself why I loved writing so much. I also had to overcome the internal argument that writing was a stupid waste of time.

Pro tip #1:

You can only ignore your feelings for so long. Eventually, your body will tire of the lies and do something mean to you to get your attention.

I won't go into what happened, but I trust and believe that my body's response caught my attention in a major way. It's time to pull myself together.

I made a deal with myself that went something like this: produce just one book this year, publish it, and get it into the hands of at least one reader. If I can do it, then I've proven that writing isn't a waste of time. I also promised that if I kept going around and not producing anything that year, I would give it up forever and do something else.

I am often scattered in my approach to solving my own problems. I tried to meditate on my own. I tried to write random bits and create a diary. I tried to join writing groups. I tried to get help from other writers I knew.

I didn't start getting traction until I found some stuff on YouTube that resonated.

Remember, I was looking for some kind of internal approval. My struggle was more than just the mechanics of creating stories and books. I needed to feel like it was "ok" for me to write!

Pro Tip #2:

All the pie-in-the-sky motivational BS on the planet means nothing if YOU don't believe in your own dream.

It took me a while, but I finally found videos that sink in and feel great. One of the first was a video with Les Brown, Eric Thomas, Will Smith and a few others. The other featured a speech by Sly Stallone.

Why these two?