Well, one of my new year’s resolutions was to write a blog every week. And so far, so good. It turns out I wrote six in January. And I felt good in January!  I felt productive! I was on track! I kept showing up! I had friends! I exercised! I hardly snacked!

But now it is February. And, for some reason, the well has run dry. All I can think about is how I don’t have anything to write and I’m not such a hot writer, and anyway, who wants to read what I have to say? Couldn’t I just phone it in? Call in sick? Take up drinking? Binge watch Netflix for a day or two?

Then I was reminded of Vince Lombardi’s wisdom. Do you now? If not, you should go here http://www.vincelombardi.com/about.html. It was writing guru and children’s author Sarah Aronson (http://www.saraharonson.com/) who wrote about Vince Lombardi today. If you haven’t already signed up for her Monday Motivations, I strongly suggest you do. In a nutshell, I understand that in the gospel according to Vince: Giving Up Is Not An Option. That it is more important what you do every day than what you do some days.

And so, I’m going to write a short blog post about the hard parts. The hard parts are those days you don’t feel like writing, or doing much of anything except maybe eating a bag of Cheetos. Today was one of those days. I did, I’m happy to report, get my butt in the chair. Prepared to work for my two allotted hours on my current manuscript.  Only to found that somehow or another I’d lost the last 3,000 words that I’d written last week. I am very proud of myself that I did not throw my computer across the floor.  I am sad to say I tried everything I know how and did not recover those words.

Reminder to those of you reading this: Save Your Work. Even if you think your computer is infallible. Just to be sure. Belts and suspenders, as they say.

Okay, I did not have a tantrum. One point for me. I went back to reconstructing that last chapter. It didn’t sing, I’m not kidding myself on that. But I got words on paper. And I worked on it for two hours, more or less. No social media breaks. Only a few peeks at my email. It’s hard, isn’t it, waiting to hear back from people who are flooded with email?

There were moments when I felt the energy return a little bit. I thought I’d beaten back the monster, the Mid-winter blues monster, or whatever this is. Then I did a little more work on some projects I’ve got percolating.  And went to the gym, that was good. But now I’m tired of writing again. I know I have to/want to post something so I keep going. And the weird thing is, the more I write this particular blog post, the happier I feel!

I realize virtually no one will read this. But that doesn’t matter so much as the act of having written it has helped. Today I have worked on my manuscript. I have exercised. I have inched a couple other projects forward. I have persisted.

Vince Lombardi would be proud of me … I think.