@RamonaRichards

This blog post is LATE.

Really late. I should have turned it in a week ago. Late, not because I couldn’t think of anything to write but because I was struggling to find time to write these few words.

Like any writer, I have an ABUNDANCE of ideas. Doesn’t everyone? After all, getting ideasis the easy part of writing. This is why most writers keep a notebook or digital recorder handy. Because ideas and concepts flit in and out all the time and if you don’t write them down, they dissipate like smoke on the mountain.

As a suspense writer, I concoct new ways to kill people and dispose of bodies almost every day. Characters float around in my head, talking to me unexpectedly, asking to have their stories told. For instance, I have a young man who fought in the Civil War up there, reminding me that he gave me his story. There’s a pirate sailing around in my brain, one who went to an English boarding school as a child, who is still in love with the headmaster’s daughter, a woman now married and living in the West Indies. I remind them that I don’t write historical fiction. They persist.

If you’re a fiction writer, you’re nodding right about now. If not, just ignore the voices.

As a devotional writer, I continually see scripture play out in my everyday life. Applications by the dozen happen just on my drive home. I have blog posts begging to be written . . . yet I haven’t touched my own blog in more than a month.

Turning ideas into projects that entertain or inspire others, however . . . well, that’s the hard part. That’s prying apart a busy schedule in order to dovetail some time for the keyboard. That’s setting aside the stress and demands of your everyday life to focus on the work. That’s writing instead of giving in to the downtime you so richly deserve.

And you do deserve it. We all crave and need rest. It’s OK to rest.

It’s also OK to set boundaries and priorities. To trade a movie for a nap so you’ll have energy to write. To work in the yard so that the following shower will help you break a writing block. To set small writing goals that you can keep instead of huge ones that derail you.

To get any hard task done, you have to make a plan. And that includes your writing. NEVER think “this is easy,” because it never is. Repeat after me: WRITING IS HARD. It takes devotion and discipline, craft and growth. It means sitting at the keyboard, typing, editing, proofing.

Writing conferences can help you with the craft and growth. They can help with networking, mentoring, and listening the tales and adventures of other writers. They can even help with the devotion.

But the discipline is up to you.

Ramona Richards is the associate publisher for Iron Stream Media, the parent company of New Hope Publishers, Iron Stream Kidz, and Ascender Books. She has been an in-house editor for Abingdon Press, Thomas Nelson, Rutledge Hill Press, and Idealsmagazine, and has freelanced for a dozen other publishers. The author of nine novels, three books of devotions, and numerous magazine articles, she is a frequent speaker for women’s and writers’ groups, and has presented at numerous conferences across the country. Her latest book, Murder in the Family,will be released in October from Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas.

Website: Ramonarichards.com

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Twitter: @RamonaRichards

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