Valentine's Day Resolution

I like to use the phrase "gutting it out" a lot. Gutting it out means sticking it out, having the guts to keep going through it. I tell myself I just have to gut it out, "it" being a million things, ranging from watching a dental procedure to this in-between phase of my life to cooking a recipe that isn't turning out to engaging with people whom I just don't like. I have to gut it out with my New Year's resolutions (anybody still sticking to theirs?). And lately, I tell myself I just have to gut it out with my writing.

Yes, that's right, my writing. Doesn't it sound professional and artistic, like a real writer? I am not a professional anything; artistic can describe me if used with a few disclaimers. But I am resolving to be a person who writes, who works on her writing. Maybe this is because I have a writer friend who inspires me, or maybe because I've been reading other people's blogs. I want to process my thoughts and experiences more, particularly recently, and writing helps me to do that. In large part, it is because of my new favorite author: Shauna Niequist. She is a brilliant writer (the kind that is for-real-published, not self-published) and I love her writing for its raw honesty, vibrant descriptions, and because she tells it like it is, the good and bad of real life. When I read her books, it makes me want to write; it makes me remember why I like to write, and I spend the next few hours with good writing ideas running around my head before I meander off to do something else. If you read at all, you have to read Shauna Niequist's books. Cold Tangerines and Bittersweet. Check out her blog at shaunaniequist.com.

In Bittersweet, she talks about making art, and how making art is hard. This is what Shauna says about the gutting-it-out part of making art:

"I'm paying close attention to the change of seasons these days, because I need a change to move me forward, and I'll take anything I can get. Today I need to end a season of time wasting, fear, obsessive blog-reading, and totally nonessential Wikipedia research...

"I think for most of us, it's hard work, fraught with fear and self-consciousness, and that it's much easier to make dinner or mow the lawn or reply to emails...

"We make art by putting the time for it on the calendar with all the glamour of scheduling a dental cleaning. We sit down and work. We pray and stare out the window and force ourselves to keep typing. We stay in our chairs and fight the urge to fold the laundry, desperate for something to control, something orderly and safe instead of the wild, untamed world of our own secret feelings and imaginations...

"Use what you have, use what the world gives you...Use your dreams and your secrets and your neglected, hidden imagination. Write a love song for someone who will never love you back. Write a comedy that used to be a tragedy, because you can create any ending you want for your own story. Write a song that says everything you've ever wanted to say to your father, or fill a canvas with all the things you hope you find out that God is, when you meet him someday. Dance till your feet bleed, sing till you're hoarse, spill out all your stories like pouring wine into thin-stemmed glasses, the liquid rich and blood-red."

I think that is beautiful. I find it so true that it's easier to do the laundry or surf the web for grad schools. Making art is hard. It requires energy and effort, and that's not fun. Much like therapy. Sometimes people think therapy is great, which it is; and that it makes your life better, which it does; and because of that it is easy and enjoyable, which it's not. But it's totally worth it: just like art. The end product is a culmination and conglomeration of the entire process, making it so rich and intricately layered that it becomes art, not product.

So where I am going with this? Recap time. Art is work. Art is worth the work. I want to write, which is art. And I am hereby resolving to write: a Valentine's Day resolution. I resolve to write on my blog at least weekly; and to write for myself as well, for my process, what I want to write but not to share with the entire internet world. I want to develop myself as a writer, and the only way to do that is to write. It's time to gut it out.