Courage: my draft in progress

How is it that I have 37 drafts and only 26 published posts?

Oh, yeah. 

Ideas are easy, but full on well-fleshed out concepts take quite a bit more work. 

It's been another distraction-filled day, and I've already made substantial progress on a draft I just thought up tonight, but I know I won't have enough time to finish it before midnight.

Well, at least I'm making progress with estimating the time it will take me to finish a post.

I'll keep working on it, and eventually, like a bicycle riding the same rough, rocky path every day, I will find my own smooth groove to ride on and avoid the gravel. And I won't find it randomly, because it's a groove I'll have hewn down myself by continually passing through.

That's how writing feels, sometimes. It's a little like riding a bike - I remember one time that I hadn't been on one for years, and was unsteady and wobbly, but then my body remembered what I had done as a child, and just like that, I was having a blast. It's so true: You will always be able to get back on the bike and ride it even after years of not riding. Likewise, before this June, I hadn't published a blog post for almost two years.

Two years!

Of course, I had tried. Many of my unpublished drafts were failed attempts during those two years of blog silence. A few of those drafts have actually been published this month as I finally gained the courage to flesh them out, rewrite or just plain edit them before posting.

And courage is what it takes, really, in any creative endeavor. Painting, drawing, sculpture, music, videos, poetry... 

It's scary to hit that publish button. It means that anyone can see my writing now. Anyone can find fault with it. But anyone can find beauty and truth in it as well, which is why I want to continue publishing what I write.

I'm getting closer. Closer to closing the gap. By the end of this month I should have more published posts than I will have drafts. And if that isn't the case, it won't be because I've stopped trying, but because I've had so many ideas I just can't finish writing them all in time!

As the song says: Today is where your book begins. The rest is still unwritten.