Bronchitis

There's a reason that everyone says you must be disciplined if you ever hope to be a good writer. Because taking extensive vacations away from your pen and expecting to return to the craft with instantaneous brilliance is just about as absurd as being a couch potato for seven years and expecting to wake up one morning and run a marathon.

Discipline and continual productivity is what builds your voice and your ability to deliver good ideas and stories in a compelling way. I think of discipline as a preventative medicine. It keeps you fresh, and ensures you'll be present and prepared when that brilliance decides to pay a visit.. but if you neglect your medicine, you begin to lose your voice, little by little. It's not necessarily irretrievable, but perhaps more like the bronchitis of the art of writing. Trying to form sentences slows to a hacking cough.. spitting up fragmented bits, it feels forced, uncomfortable, leaves a sour taste in your mouth. I used to speak through the written word so fluidly, but now it's feeling hoarse and scattered..

Ideas stack up in my mind and, without giving them proper release, they become trapped pressure and my head begins to swell. Now I've got bronchitis of writing and a sinus infection of ideas. Fantastic.

I wish there was a magic pill to cure what ails my stuffed up, congested writing, but it turns out the only way to reverse the condition is to sit down and commit to the process, over and over again. Because to regain your voice as a writer, you simply need to use it more often..