Discouragement & What To Do About It

Last week in church (not day before yesterday, obviously, since it was conference), I sat in a row behind two little girls.  The younger sister was drawing on a blank pad and the older was writing on a 5"x7" spiral note pad.  I happened to notice the first line read "Once upon a time."  Immediately intrigued, I tried to inconspicuously read more, but could only make out a few words here and there in her large, childish handwriting.  Among them were "princess" and "talking cat."  This was certainly a little girl after my own heart!  She was interrupted once by her sister who gave her a drawing that included a heart and the words "I lov u," which she accepted with a smile. She wrote studiously for several minutes until the page was completely full of words, fitting in the end of her last sentence by turning the page sideways and writing the last couple words perpendicular to the rest.  Then, after tearing the page carefully from the notebook, she held it out, beaming, to her mother.

Those girls reminded me so much of me and my sister at that age.  I remember turning the page sideways, too.  After the meeting, I asked the mother how old the girl was.  Seven.  Seven years old and she's already writing stories.  When I mentioned that I used to do that, of course the natural response from the mother was   "How did that work out? Do you still write?"  I was embarrassed to admit that I haven't pursued writing as aggressively as I once thought I would.  But if there's one dream of mine that I've always had, as long as I can remember, it's being a writer, publishing a book.  I started my first book around age 11 or 12 -- never finished, of course.  The one I'm currently "working" on, I started at least 12 or 13 years ago.  My natural inclination is to beat myself up about it, but I must grudgingly admit that the last few months, I have actually worked on it -- mostly by starting over, but it's still the same story.

So, I'm discouraged.  I'll be 29 for the fifth year in a row this summer and I haven't accomplished anything I'm really proud of.  Listening to conference this last weekend, I thought about this a LOT.  I don't think that's what the talks were really about, but that seems to be all I heard -- doing something to make your life worthwhile.  I think my garden is a good start, and Janette, my RS President has been thrilled with my new activity at church -- I'm getting involved with the mid-week RS meeting committee, and that's been fun so far -- but the one thing I keep coming back to whenever I wonder what I really want to do with my life, is write.

Getting to the point... The garden will be good for me physically, I've made a good start at going back to church and being more active spiritually, so my mental well-being goal will be to finish Twin's Magic.  Hopefully I'll have it done by my birthday, but if I think of it that way, I'll put it off until it's too late.  Instead, I'm going to write at least 2 pages a day.  I won't limit myself to 2 pages -- if I have time or I'm on a roll, I'll write more, but I'm going to do at least 2.  So, here goes!  Good luck to me!