It’s 7:00 pm on Tuesday, June the 3rd, which means it’s time to write.

My ideas are all dried up. Well, not exactly. I’ve got what feels like my 233rd notebook of my life that I’m filling, and scribbled on those welcoming blue lines and pink margins are words that just might have some promise.

Except none of them feel right tonight.

Sometimes they don’t feel right, ever.

But it’s 7:13 pm, so it’s time to get cracking.

It has become my routine to write in the evenings. If I didn’t have to get up and go to a job every day, I’d pull all-nighters. As it is, it’s sometimes 1:00 or 2:00 am before I hit the hay, and even then, I don’t want to put it down.

But I have to get up around 6:00 am, and I poddle (I’m using that non-word. It’s a great way to describe those sluggish, early morning movements where you go through the motions, bleary-eyed, before nesting on the couch with a grunting shih-tzu for a few glorious minutes) into the living room, where Sweet Husband usually has my coffee ready and waiting for me.

We consider the day ahead.

I read my Bible and pray.

I do a last reading of the day’s blog post, before giving it a blessing and sending it into the wide, wide world.

BM. We’re all friends here, and the coffee has activated.

I get ready for work, I pack my breakfast and lunch, and I hit the road.

Work. 

I’m home between 4:30 and 5:00 pm most days during the summer, and then it is time to walk the dog, exercise, and cook dinner. 

Sweet Husband and I talk about our day. Youngest Daughter breezes through with her own stories.

I text Oldest Daughter who is away at college and is doing her own thing.

I wash the dishes, sweep or vacuum the floor, or do a load of clothes.

And then, it’s time to write.

Much of the time, the ideas have been forming in my head all day long. But sometimes, I’m like a well gone dry, like tonight.

And it doesn’t matter whether or not I feel like I’m about to write something worthy of a Pulitzer Prize or some crap worse than what’s etched on a bathroom stall–I’m going to have great doubt and self-loathing. It’s like my own personal pep talk warm up before getting my game on, and it goes something like this:

“You’ll quit on this one. You can’t keep this up. Why are you even doing this, anyway? What are you trying to prove? Nobody cares what you say, so stop trying. You’re not good enough, and you’ll never be anything more than a wannabe. So just give up. Stop writing. Stop putting yourself out there, you stupid ______.” 

Yeah, I say those words, to myself, worse things than I would ever say to anyone else.

But there is another, quieter Voice, and it runs deep through the current of my being, a mighty underground river that fills the hollowed caverns of my soul.

And it says:

“Keep on. Don’t give up. You can do this. It’s not about being good enough. It’s about doing what you were created to accomplish. I didn’t put this desire into your heart for nothing. All the words in the world are at your fingertips. You just have to find the right ones.”

Then there is peace, and I know I can manage one more night of it. The creative flow comes, that magic carpet on which I could ride forever, or at least until 2:00 am.

So I’m gonna hang in there like a hair in a biscuit. You don’t even have to dare me to try.

Plus, it’s a little hard to quit when you’ve got a routine.