Rejuvenate the Writing Soul

How do you rejuvenate a weary soul when you feel so lost for a long time? You do it by facing the problem and moving forward.

I had to confront that type of problem this fall. For more than a year, my life was miserable. A health issue had plagued me. I tried to deny its existence. But after so much anguish, where I no longer could enjoy life, I gathered up my nerve and went to my primary doctor. He prescribed a medicine, which ended up giving me every kind of side effect mentioned, such as dizziness and foggy vision. I called the office and they referred me to a specialist.

From there, I eventually ended up seeing a woman doctor. She tried one remedy but I could not tolerate that solution. The next option was surgery.

“Surgery,” the word hung on my lips. I had never had an operation. The only time I was in the hospital was when I gave birth to four sons. Now, this avenue faced me.

I tried a chiropractor. He was a nice man and did his best, but my problem had deteriorated to such a point that method did not work.

A friend urged me to get a second opinion. Finally, I took her advice. The smiley doctor came in and gave me his honest recommendation, which was the same as the first opinion – surgery. However, during this visit, he talked about what would happen down the road if I let it go. This frightened me. I had to face the music as they say. After the visit, I returned home and called the first doctor’s office to schedule the procedure.

February first was my day of reckoning. We also all experience those days in our writing. Should we write this story? Will this book sell? Is there enough emotion in this to make this novel work? If nonfiction, can I make this information interesting?

These are difficult decisions, which also must be confronted. How do we decide these? We do through asking others in the field, our readers or taking professional advice as I did. In other words, we rejuvenate our writing souls.

We enlist fresh ideas, we rewrite, we fine tune until we reach the state of proficiency. We are in control of our fate. We edge forward with our next great idea just like I moved ahead to do the procedure.

Where will we end up? We do not know. But after my “surgery,” I can say I am no longer in misery. I again am living my life to the fullest as God provided.

Are you? If not proceed forward, what do you have to lose? Nothing. You do not know what you will miss if you do not put one foot before the other and step toward your next destination. Why? Because you do not know what will happen if you do not, and that alone should keep you moving onward. God bless.