ON THE ROAD TO YOUR DREAMS

As any blogger will tell you, it takes a lot to make a blog successful.  
 
You have to offer value. You have to be informative. You have to be a touch unique.  
 
And you have to be consistent.  
 
Reliable.  
 
Your readers need to know what to expect.  
 
And as any blogger will tell you, going completely silent for two months is hands down not a recipe for success.  
 
Only . . . that’s exactly what I did.  ​

This is my first time posting on RE: Writing for two months now.  
 
The reason is pretty simple: 
 
I’ve been working on my novel.  
 
I’ve been working on it to the extent that, for the past two months, it’s been all I’ve focused on.  
 
And I’ve let everything else—including RE: Writing—slip away.  
 
Like I said, not the smartest strategy for successful blogging.  
 
And yet, here’s the thing: 
 
I don’t regret it at all.  
 
Because these past two months have allowed me to practically finish my book.  
 
(Practically because I’m taking a two week break from it before I officially consider it complete.) 
 
Yes, I could have stuck with my balanced schedule of splitting my time between my book, this blog, and the occasional freelance job.  
 
But if I had done that, I’d probably still be months away from completion.   ​

​What’s my point? Why am I telling you all this? 
 
I’m telling you because the past two months have taught me something.  
 
And that’s that commitment is important. Don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise.  
 
If you read this post thinking that I’m saying it’s OK to break commitments, you misunderstood the post.  
 
But it’s also taught me that the road to our dreams is a funny one.  
 
For some, perhaps, it’s a straight one.  
 
But for most of us it isn’t. For most of us, it’s this strange, crooked, sometimes circular path that takes us on all types of detours.  
 
And along the way, we pick up new dreams and new hopes.  
 
And we find ourselves occasionally reevaluating and reassessing.  
 
And when we look back, though the road is never what we had planned for or envisioned, we don’t regret any of it.  
 
But at the same time, we are on a road.  
 
With a purpose. 
 
We’re not just aimlessly wandering.  
 
We’re going somewhere.  
 
And at every point of the way, you’ll find people telling you to stop. Come look at this. This is important, too.  
 
And they usually are.  
 
And before long, you’ve accumulated so many important things that you can’t possibly focus on them all.  
 
And that’s a good thing, too.  
 
We are allowed more than one dream. One hope. One plan.  
 
But it’s also OK to let things go and, for a short while, focus on the reason you got onto the road in the first place.  
 
What I’m trying to say, in my somewhat roundabout manner, is this: 
 
Life is full of commitments, and those commitments are important.  
 
And life is full of dreams, and those dreams are important, too.  
 
And in a general sense, the healthy road is the balanced one—the one that sees you holding true to all those commitments while still finding time to chase your dreams.  
 
But once in a while, it’s OK to stop and focus on the one thing. 
 
Even if that means everything else falls to the side.  
 
Because sometimes, the only road to success is to let yourself fail, momentarily, at everything else.