I woke up at 6:00 this morning. This is not anything new. I frequently wake at about that time, look at the clock, assess how tired I still am, roll over, and go back to sleep. But amazingly this morning I felt like getting up! Okay, also amazingly my geriatric dog uncharacteristically felt like getting up at 6:00 so I had to let him out anyway. But I did feel good! I came downstairs, started the coffee and wondered what I would do with all this unfamiliar morning energy. I know…I’ll write! It has been far too long since I sat and wrote anything other than thank you notes or grocery lists. And after all, “a writer writes”!

So…I opened up my blog site where I have multiple writing prompts just waiting for me. And I scanned the options, opened up a couple to see what they might inspire, aaaaand…nothing. Nada. Blank slate and blank stare. Arggggghhhh!

This particular prompt/post title was followed by a couple of questions. “Are people born to be writers? Or do they evolve?” Well, at that moment I was feeling pretty confident that I wasn’t born to it. I also wasn’t feeling like evolution was helping either. But then my son–who can be annoyingly wise at times–reminded me that when a writer can’t write they write about not being able to write. So here I am.

This is also a good reminder that all writers–whether born to it or born with a desire to evolve–run into walls at times. Those of us who read can be lulled into thinking that all of those published authors that we love–or love to hate–didn’t just sit down and write a perfect first draft in two hours or less. What we see is the finished product, neatly printed and bound, not the “crumpled pages lying around on the floor” nor the sweat and tears lingering on the computer. I think most of us equate being a writer with being published. But this is a falsehood. Being a writer is a lifelong endeavor. One is always becoming a writer. A writer writes, yes. But a writer also stews, agonizes, dreams, reflects, thinks, compares, reads, talks–all of this and more. And then at some point all of this leads to “putting pen to paper” because, well, we just have to. Because we are always becoming a writer. Like moths to a light, we can’t help ourselves.

There is something else, more important than talent or ideas or time, that a writer has: discipline. A real writer is disciplined; writing, always writing but also re-writing: editing, deleting, adding, and editing some more. As French philosopher and mathematician famously wrote: “I would have written a shorter letter but I did not have the time.” Every good writer knows that words aren’t just written once and that’s that. Writing can always–and should frequently–be condensed and shaped with the perfect word for the perfect effect. In our fast-paced, emoji-and-acronym-riddled forms of communication we are lulled into thinking that writing easily accomplished without much time or thought. Indeed, blogging seems to perpetuate the notion that anyone can write anything and publish it.

Writing, like gardening, takes time, discipline, hard work and yes, sometimes sweat. Which might be why I am a writer in my mind. Also, a gardener…