The biggest obstacles to our progress exist within our own lives in the form of cowardice and the tendency to give up. Breaking through these barriers will unleash a surging wave of change.  - Daisaku Ikeda

Have you noticed that the minute you determine to do something - challenges come thick and fast?  And immediately.  Don't believe me?  Go on a diet. I'll bet you a double chocolate frappe that should you declare to the world that you are only going to eat organic vegetables for the next six weeks, within an hour someone will be offering you the very foods you have turned your back on.  And not your average garden variety chokky bix either. No it will be your favourite rich double icing gooey kind.

I haven't decided to go on a diet but I have decided to commit to my writing and boy am  I getting obstacles thrown at me thick and fast and it's awfully tempting to give up on both of them.

The first thing I committed to was signing up  for NaNoWriMo - partly because I need the discipline in my fiction writing and partly because I would like to actually finish my damned novel.  Having attempted NNWM twice before and never got beyond Day 2 I made a vow that come hell or high water I was going to write every day and get this rough draft down. I made it through Day 1 and the dreaded Day 2.  Didn't get anywhere near it yesterday and it's hovering on another open tab as I write - taunting me.  A part of me - mainly the part with the thumping headache I've been nursing for a fortnight - would like to just throw up my arms and concede defeat. After all it's not like NNWM is a huge deal right?  It's not like it's important or anything.  Only - it is.  I want to finish this manuscript.  I want to submit it for publication.  And I can't do that if I don't write it!  And if I can't commit to writing once a day for NNWM - when am I going to commit to it?

Not long after making the committment to NaNo, I made the committment to launch this site and work on my non-fiction.  People were supportive and showed intereset.  Within days the idea of documentary writing came up .  All of the things that keep you going.  Then life began intruding.  Things like cooking dinner, housework, going to yoga, cuddling kids, work - and please tell me I don't have to tell you these are in no particular order - showering.  For the first time in ages, when my head hit the pillow, The Man of The House has been all out of luck.  Suddenly, I am struggling to get everything done.  And again that desire to give up began to niggle at me. Luckily I took some advice from blogger extraordinaire Ben Young from www.bwagy.com  who pointed out that consistency didn't have to be three times a day, seven days a week. Not yet anyway.

You see I love to write - it's my driving passion.  And I've worked really hard over the past six years to be in a position to be able to write - so I don't want to give up.  I also don't like to think of myself as a coward. Well not in this instance anyway.  Tell me a shark is heading my way, and I'm more than happy to wear that label - but a coward when faced with writing.  No thank you.   What about facing becoming a successful writer?  Nu-uh - no cowards here.  So if there are no cowards, I should just be able to get on and do it.  Which leads me all the way back to the blasted obstacles. 

And that is when I had my efip...eppyf...my realisation occurred (and I should point out that it was only about a half hour ago).  I realised the obstacles were of my own making - so I could in fact break through them.  Life getting in the way? Plan better.  Lacking confidence?  Draw on faith.  Can't concentrate?  Turn off the TV, take the laptop outside.  Too quiet?  That's why Bruce was put on this piece of granite.  In other words - there IS always an answer if you just choose to look for it instead of giving up. And it doesn't have to be perfect right away - the important thing is you keep working at it.

So if you'lle excuse me, Bruce is cued on the mp3 player (dear Santa...iPod.....), the kids are asleep, I don't need to be at work until 7 tomorrow morning, and I've got some chanting under my belt - I think I'm ready to go smash an obstacle or two.

See you further on up the road