Get Serious: Writer's Leap 366 (#5)

Lesson 5: Get serious about becoming a writer.

Where are you on your writing journey? Just beginning? Is it a hobby? Is it a dream to someday do something more? Are you already published but backslidden?

A little over four years ago, I was a hobby writer who thought nobody but me would ever care to read the stuff came out of my twisted little brain. And to be honest, after four years of "getting serious" writing to compare it to, I think "not good" is a pretty accurate description of my writing back then. Four more years of writing experience and learning will probably provoke me to look back at today's writing and cringe over it's erroneous simplicity (we writers are odd like that).

So how do you know when you're ready to get serious about writing? 

I can tell you how I knew--how I finally faced the inevitable and surrendered.

I realized it was the thing that set me on fire and the thing that cooled me in it's embrace. In the midst of the frenzied excitement of story creation, I'd lose hours of time, or I'd stress in a long drag of hours over story uncertainty. Writing released me at the same time it consumed me. And God was persuading me at the same time the devil was dissuading me.

When these mental dichotomies revealed themselves to me, I knew that no other job in the world would ever be good enough again.

And I knew it was time to get serious about writing.

How about you? Are you ready to get serious about writing or are you already there?

Visit me tomorrow for another Writer's Leap 366 lesson.