Get Up, Get Motivated, and Write

It's no secret that I am in love with Asheville, North Carolina. If you've ever checked out my Pinterest page, you know that I have an extensive board dedicated entirely to Asheville. I first visited Asheville in March of 2014, when I wrote you this post about my Southeastern vacation. And then there was this post a little over a month ago referring to my move to North Carolina.

What you may not know is that I fell so completely in love with Asheville during my 2014 trip that I (with the help of my mom) convinced my entire family to move to North Carolina with me. My grandparents went first, then finally my parents' house sold and my mom, dad, brother and I moved. However, there was one little kink in my plan: no one else loved Asheville like I did.

So, instead of moving straight to my utopia, I landed an hour and a half away in a suburb of Charlotte. It's great here, don't get me wrong - the weather is blisteringly awesome, and I'm having a lot of fun decorating my new room and taking evening trips to Charlotte - but it isn't Asheville.

When I heard that the HGTV Urban Oasis 2015 was located in Asheville, NC - my Asheville, NC! - I set a countdown widget and waited for the first day I could begin entering. Since that day, I've logged on to the Urban Oasis site everyday and entered to win my perfect dream home in my perfect dream location.

As soon as I turn my computer on - before I begin writing or blogging or searching Pinterest - I go to the site and enter myself into the drawing for the Urban Oasis.

And that routine got me thinking...what if we applied this sort of routine to writing life? If you're truly dedicated to writing, if it's what you long for and desire above everything else is to write, then why not make it the start of your day, every day?

Before you check your email - write a sentence.

Before you heat your tea - write a paragraph.

Before you walk out the door for your commute - write a phrase, a period, a word - anything!

If it's your dream, if it's something you want with all your heart, then why shouldn't you make it happen in any way that you can?

John McPhee once did an interview with The Paris Review where he said,

"put a drop in a bucket every day, after three hundred and sixty-five days, the bucket's going to have some water in it."

Writing takes dedication and motivation. It takes getting up early and staying up way too late. Sometimes, it takes sneaking a sentence in here and there whenever you can, just so you can move that story farther along.

But the more you do it, the more it repays you. In the end you could have a wonderful piece that's ready for publication. You could have a whole novel or an epic poem. You could be walking away with your own dream house.