Never give up

On a day where I am struggling with hay fever and the after effects of a night out I may be forgiven for not being as focused as I usually am.

We all have difficult days, on the grand scheme of things mine is not really that bad.

My book will wait for me.

I still remember the days when I thought that writers had to be superhuman. The endless battle to put the words on the page seemed to require special abilities that almost belonged in a Marvel or DC comic storyline. How could I possibly finish a novel? And how would I ever make a living as an author. It seemed an impossible dream. On more than one occasion I felt that my books would remain incomplete. There were too many obstacles. My work, health and other things got in the way.

Life is hard sometimes.

But writing is simple the process of putting marks onto a page or screen. Compare with say, an emergency worker, this job of ours is straight forward. Life is hard sometimes. The words dry up. We defeat ourselves, or get distracted. The stories refused to cooperate with their creators, but these issues are minor. The world keeps spinning and the troubles we experience are nothing compared with say, children in Syria or Iraq or even the homeless guys I see begging on the streets of my home town.

So we don't need special powers. We don't need to beat ourselves up either if we dry up creatively. The muse will return. Writing is important. For most of us it isn't life threatening. Just keep trying. This is a special job we do. Putting words into a story. It has never been easier to publish. It has never been so easy to start. We can succeed in living our dream.

If we never give up.