I am lazy and I am a procrastinator and I don’t always wanna write and I’ll come up with a myriad of reasons not to.

There.  I said it out loud.  I’m on a roll.  Here’s some more:

I’m not organized and I think what I write sucks and I lack motivation at times and I have no inspiration and I’m too busy to write today and and and and…

You get the picture.

If it were up to me, sometimes I think I’d never write.  I can come up with all kinds of excuses to not write.  As a matter of fact, I know plenty of writers who are the same way.

Fortunately, most of us have a cheerleader.

The cheerleader is the person who understands that while we may complain loudly, there is work to be done.  The cheerleader understands that the excuses are just excuses.  The cheerleader understands that writing can be lonely and isolating.  The cheerleader enjoys kicking us in the butt and saying “GET MOVING, YOU LAZY SLOTH!  THE BOOK WILL NOT WRITE ITSELF!  AND NO MATTER HOW AWFUL YOU THINK IT IS, IT WON’T BE THAT BAD AND I WILL BE HERE TO ENCOURAGE YOU WHEN YOU ARE DONE!”

Or something like that.

But we all have cheerleaders.

Mine lives in Minnesota.  She isn’t afraid to use her sharp tongue, isn’t afraid to speak her mind, isn’t afraid to tell me when I’m wrong, isn’t afraid to tell me to stop being lazy, isn’t afraid to mock me, isn’t afraid to push me, isn’t afraid to bribe me, isn’t afraid to leverage me, isn’t afraid to tell me to suck it up, isn’t afraid to roll her eyes at me, isn’t afraid to tell me I can do it, isn’t afraid to stare at me until I start writing, isn’t afraid to use sarcasm as a motivational tool, isn’t afraid to hug me, isn’t afraid to tell me she believes in me.  She gets it and she gets me.

Thank you, Beth.  I’d be lost without you.

Who is YOUR cheerleader?