Permission to flourish

Believe you will succeed, and you will.
~ Dale Carnegie

My last post, “No more apologies,” was about just that. Instead, I’ve been letting [aka training] the people in my life to know it’s essential I have my “writing time” each day, no questions asked. Unless someone is bleeding, I want no interruptions. The first day, I briefed my family before I shut the door to the outside world (except for my cats). For one hour I revised an essay, as well as rambled for 168 words in my personal blog. The 60 minutes flew by (proving the theory once again that time does fly when you’re having fun) and, when my timer chimed, I felt refreshed and happy—nourished. And the more I write, the more I want to write. It seems my muse has been waiting for permission to flourish unhindered by expectations, boundaries and guilt. To reign free. I’m excited to see where it takes me.

What do you need to make regular time for?

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

No more apologies

In my last post, When change steals your dreams, I touched on the recent writers’ conference I attended in Las Vegas. Although there were a multitude of takeaways, one I put into practice today: Write. Oh sure, I write when I squeeze it in between tasks or in lieu of watching TV. I write when I’m on deadline or a blog idea rattles around in my white matter. Yet, until the conference, I’ve always felt guilty for shutting out the world while I indulge in what oftentimes feels like a selfish passion. But not anymore. I finally committed to a set [amount of] time each day to devote to writing. Another takeaway is it doesn’t matter what I’m writing, as long as my butt is in my chair and I’m putting words on paper. Even if I’m not laboring over the “next great American novel,” any writing I do is honing my craft, one word—one essay, blog or article—at a time. That’s my dream. No apologies.

Image courtesy of stockimages at FreeDigitalPhotos.net.