Would You Write Through the Pain?

Would you find the time to write if you were a single parent and the sole caregiver for a disabled daughter and an elderly father?   What if you also experienced constant pain from fibromyalgia? Deborah Malone, author of Death in Dahlonega did.  Monday evening I attended the Christian Author's Guild meeting and heard her story.  It's a pretty amazing one.  It's also a pretty inspiring one. She lives in Rome Georgia and like many writers, part of her story involves writing through the pain.  She even has a formula for writing success: Inspiration + Persistence = Success.  She describes her writing as not only a passion but also an escape from her many responsibilities.  She remembers in those early days that her writing would often  be interrupted by  her daughter calling her from one end of the house and her father calling from the other end at the same moment. It took her four years to write her first novel and then numerous rejections before she found a publisher.  Some people would have given up.  Some people would have figured it wasn't meant to be.  Some people would have said I'll do it later when I have the time.  Not Deborah.  She said, "I heard if you write a page a day, you'd have a book in a year, so I figured I could do that."  Inspiration + Persistence = Success.

I can't tell you how many people I talk to who tell me that they always wanted to write a book.  They have a great story, a great idea, an unusual experience to share.  But they just don't have the time.  They just don't have the know how.  They just don't have ... whatever.  Next time someone tells me that, I"m going to tell them to talk to Deborah.  She didn't have any of those things either.  She had a lot of responsibilities.  She had a lot of pain.  She didn't know how to do it.  But she did it anyway.  She took a few classes in creative writing.  She read some inspirational books on writing.  She joined some organizations on writing.   She wrote a page a day and today she is a published author who is, "Having the time of my life!" and telling other wannabe authors her story.  How did she do it?  Inspiration + Persistence = Success.

If she can do it, what about you?  Are you willing to forget the excuses?  Are you willing to persist despite the obstacles?  Are you willing to write through the pain?