Change Is in the Air — But What About Writing?

I'm moving! It's official. As of September 5th, I will be the new Junior Project Marketing Manager at a really great academic publisher in New York City. And there's so much to do in such a short time!

Interviewing last week and receiving the job offer two days later, I took the weekend to make my decision. Officially accepting the job this past Monday, it seems as if I have virtually no time to pack up my life and get myself down to New York to start anew. But so it goes, and the adventure begins!

In all of this — interviewing, contemplating, visiting, apartment searching, packing, and saying my 'see you later's  — my writing has certainly taken the back-burner. What can you do, right? Still, I've been feeling bad about this. I so want to finish my final revisions and send out my manuscript and start a new project, but some seasons of life just don't provide for that. Sometimes things get busy. And priorities must be shifted. Yet it is these times that remind me just how much of a discipline writing it is; just how much we have to protect our workspace, or it might never get done.

For the first time in a long time, I will admit that I see how easily writing can slip away. I understand again just how much of a discipline it is. Writing won't just take care of itself. It doesn't magically make time in your day for you to sit down and be magically productive. We have to make that time. We have to carve out the physical and mental space to create and shape our work. We have to set aside the time, set writing as a priority, and stay committed.

And it's okay that I've haven't been doing that right now. It's just not happening, and I accept that. But it can't be okay forever. Not if I really want to pursue these dreams.

So after another week or two, when I get settled, I have to start writing again. I have to be on a schedule that works with my new life, in my new city. The discipline of writing has been part of my life here in Boston, and so, too, will it be part of my life there in New York. Because I want it to be. Because my writing matters to me.

So here's to new adventures and chasing dreams. May we all remember what's important to us, and keep the discipline to make those things happen.