In the long run

I had good intentions. I was fired up, inspired about this blog for writers. But that's the way it is when a project is in its idea, design, and launch stages. The true test lies in the long run. Endurance.

On June 6, I had surgery to repair three herniated neck disks--after seven months of sometimes debilitating pain. (For more on this, read my inspirational blog entry, "Selah.") Which is what happened to my endurance. Seven months of pain takes a lot out of you--body, mind, and spirit.

I might have been down, but I wasn't out. I'm slowly getting back in the run, even if I have to walk--plod--at first. Sometimes I'm itching to get back to the novel I started back in November, when my left arm first started going numb. Sometimes I'm too tired to care. I have a list, though, on an electronic sticky note on my computer desktop:

1. Prepare my third book of meditations for publication and release this fall
2. Prepare my novel, Before I Die, to upload to Amazon and B&N as an ebook
3. Complete Pathways to God assignment

Add in bookkeeping (I haven't even started 2011 yet), my radio program and column, mentoring, editing, preparing for speaking engagements, organizing a fall women's conference, writing articles for at least three publications, submitting stories for publication in upcoming Chicken Soup books, planning and implementing the 2011-12 adult Sunday school publicity program, getting ready for the 2011-2011 school year. Gee, I'm tired just writing about it.

It looks like a lot, but the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. Endurance begins when you pick yourself up, dust yourself off, ignore the pain, and take that step.



PS. NOTES:

• I've done away with the weekly schedule for this blog. I'd rather it be spontaneous. I'm an organized person and thrive on lists, but sometimes organization tosses creativity out the window.

• Literary agent Steve Laube just launched  Publishing News, a e-newspaper with the latest on what's going on in the publishing world. Some interesting stuff. Why not subscribe to it and keep up-to-date? I did.