We were on a call the other day with some of the writers in our Your Soulful Book program, and someone mentioned how, as an experiment, she tried speaking her book instead of writing it. She figured that since speaking came more easily to her than writing, this method was worth trying out. And it worked for her! The words flowed out, and she soon found herself with several chapters for her book! She then used a program to transcribe the words into a document so she could edit them. Instead of feeling frustrated about her book, she felt inspired and motivated. And she mentioned how she questioned whether it could really be this easy. Haven’t we been taught that we have to work really hard in order to create something meaningful? Don’t we have to go deep into the trenches in order to pull out some sort of gem that’s worth something? If it’s hard, it matters more to us, right? If we’ve struggled, we’ll appreciate it more. And if it’s truly our dream, we’ll have to fight for it. Isn’t that what so many of us have heard throughout our lives?

These questions opened up a great discussion that included lots of revelations for many of us on the call. And while I definitely don’t find speaking more comfortable than writing, her example got me thinking about my own life, especially around writing. I started looking at where I was making things more difficult than they needed to be and wondered how I could make things easier for myself, too.

I’ve been working on a few different books over the last few years – all of which are in different stages of completion. One is with my agent, and I’m just waiting for her edits. One is a completed first draft that’s waiting for my edits. And one is a partly completed draft. Each of these books is meaningful to me, but for some reason I feel a heaviness inside my heart when I think about putting in the time needed to finish them.

A couple of weeks ago, I sat down at my computer and felt the urge to open Word and start typing. I hadn’t written anything new for quite a long time, so this definitely came as a surprise to me. And what I wrote came as an even bigger surprise. Fiction! (Something I never had an interest in pursuing and swore I would never do.)

However, the words carried an energy with them that I hadn’t felt in such a long time, and I decided to stick with it and see where it took me. And the ideas (and the words) are continuing to flow! What I’m finding is that it’s easy. And I’m enjoying the process. It doesn’t feel heavy or like a “have to” or like absolute drudgery. It’s fun and free and light.

And this is my evidence that it really can be easy. Pursuing our dreams doesn’t have to be hard work. It is possible to enjoy ourselves along the way. We don’t have to be the artist that we see in movies who struggles to create, throws paints and paper around in fits, and seems to hate the entire process of creating whatever their masterpiece is. We can make it fun. And light. And easy.

What a relief this is.

I’m hopeful that this lightness will continue throughout my writing journey. I hope that it will transfer to the page, and that the reader will get to feel this same lightness, too. I would love that.

Creating can be fun. How about that?

Dreaming can be fun.

Life can be fun.

I love that.

And I hope you do, too. I look forward to seeing what we all create this year and beyond.

Hugs,

 

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