Even when it's tough

16 of 31 at Two Writing Teachers!

"I don't have anything to wriiiite about..." I whined at my husband.
"Write about not having anything to write about!" I glared at him out of the corner of my eye. I've done that before, and so have other people!

"What about going to see country music last night? How tired you are? The fluctuating weather?..."

He was full of ideas, but none of them sounded any good. I'd already written about that, or that idea would take too much work, or I couldn't possibly come up with anything good about that one...

I was NOT in a writing mood. I was sleepy and grumpy and just wanted to take a day off.

I visited my students' blogs and left them comments. Nope, still didn't feel like writing.

I played some games on my iPad. I just wanted to keep playing.

I scrolled through Twitter and Facebook. I visited some of my friends' blogs, knowing I was really behind on leaving comments and hoping that would get me in the writing mood. I didn't even feel like leaving comments. I scrolled through posts and left the tabs open, figuring I'd go back and leave comments after I wrote. Which I still didn't feel like doing.

Ugh. Why did March have to be such a long month, anyway? 

I sighed and huffed and whined a little more.

Finally, I opened up Evernote to look at my list of saved mentor-text posts and things I want to write about someday. As I scrolled, I found several possibilities. The clouds hanging over my head dissipated.

I chose Elsie's post from last year about her writing spot. That would be a fun short post!

I jumped up, cleared off some clutter, kicked Husband off of the other end of the couch and took a quick picture. Now, snippets of the post I'd write were rolling through my mind. I settled back in, ready to write a quick description of my spot.

But first, I'd just write a short introduction about how I chose that writing idea...

And since I can't write a short post, I ended up realizing after a few sentences that the introduction was going to turn into a post. I grinned, changed the title, and ruefully announced, "Well, I guess I have a idea ready for tomorrow!"

I love how the challenge reminds me not to be annoyed the next time a student complains he doesn't have anything to write about. I love how writing begets more writing. I love that tomorrow, I can go into school and tell my students how I really struggled to write yesterday... but I did it anyway, and then I felt proud.

After all, that's why it's called a challenge, right? It teaches you to keep going even when it's tough.