I’m reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s book ‘Big Magic’,and its keeping me going on this writing journey. I was seriously contemplating giving up this daily writing process. I had trotted out the usual reasons to convince myself — no one reads what I write; what good will this do for me; why should I do this. The chapter I read today talked to me about keeping at it, about writing and writing and writing even if you were not at your best. And then I was aware of this fear within, that had staked a claim to prime space in my mind, the fear that I just don’t have it in me. It was celebrating its success. It was feeling victorious. It was at this moment that I felt a faint stirring of stubbornness within. I will not give in so easily. I’m 49 years old and I am certainly not about to spend the rest of my life wondering why I didn’t keep writing.

Although this writing exercise started as a promise to a friend, now it’s more a mantra that I’m clutching on to, a life raft that I want to save myself with. Like Liz Gilbert says “ We all need something that helps us to forget ourselves for a while — to momentarily forget our age our gender, our socioeconomic background, our duties, our failures, and all that we have lost and screwed up.”

So I write.