This is my third attempt at writing/editing this post. I was planning to share it last month but couldn’t find the time to finish it. Today, I decided it was done.

A work colleague turned friend finished a draft of her book and she’s in the process of getting it ready to send to her agent. I had the chance to do a beta read for her. I really enjoyed it and I hope she finds a publisher. She’s worked on this book for years and she’s ready. The book is ready.

I share that little bit as a segue into this next sentence.

I write. Honestly, that’s difficult to admit not because I’m embarrassed by that confession (OK, yes, some of what I put on the page is horrible until I re-write it but it’s words on a page and that counts so I try not to be too hard on myself.) but because I don’t do it with enough regularity to think of myself as a writer. Take this blog for instance. A regular poster I am not.

I write all day long, five days a week. But I don’t think of that writing the same way I think of my fiction writing, mostly because the ‘at work’ writing is limited to emails, marketing plans, creative briefs, editing releases, web content, you get the idea. I don’t consider it exciting writing. By exciting, I mean that I’m not making up a world, or a character, or a scene. Work writing has to be based in brand reality — that’s not exciting the way fiction writing is for me.

Recently, I had this notion that I would spend 30 minutes a night writing, working on my new story, outlining scenes, whatever it was as long as I was focused on my story in some small way. I would even time myself so I knew it was only 30 minutes and a small commitment.

That plan lasted all of two days.

Two. Days.

I have ideas. I write them down in my notebook. But I don’t feel I’m actively writing. Frankly, life can be busy. Work can be busy and mentally trying. I don’t always want to close one laptop to open another.

You know what that is? That’s an excuse. And lately, I feel I’ve become excellent at making excuses when it comes to my writing.

That needs to change because I want it to. I want to write more. I enjoy writing, making up a new reality to play in, and if it seems right, to share with other people.

Maybe saying that out loud will help create the change I’m looking for.