Allstate was right. Life does happen fast.

If you’ve been hovering around the blog recently, you’ve probably gathered that my life has been a bit unpredictable. I’ll spare you the details, but suffice to say that just about nothing has gone to plan in the past month. When I decided to make major changes to this blog, my writing output, and my freelance business, I had no idea that I’d get hit by ordeal after ordeal immediately afterwards. Instead of having the time to leisurely put everything together over long hours as I’d planned, I’m scrapping together minutes at a time to work on the new site for my stories. I’m still trying to catch up on my blog post queue and post weekly on Vocal and almost daily on Medium.

But this crazy month hasn’t been for nothing. It made me realise that the recent hustle and bustle has felt exactly like the past two and a half years have felt to me: busy and full of change. It’s almost like the past month was a concentrated reflection of the larger time frame. And, for the first time, it made me really sit down and think about what’s changed, what I’ve learned, and why.

The result is this post, a reflection on the most important lessons I’ve learned through this time of transition and change, lessons that can be applied to both writing and life in general. I hope that they’ll help you through your own writing process and seasons of change.

1. Predictability Isn’t Predictable

I love it when things are predictable. The catch is that things are never predictable for long, so putting your faith in predictability is predictably going to disappoint you.

It reminds me of a story Jesus tells about wise and foolish builders. A wise man builds his house on a rock, and when storms come, his house stands firm. A foolish man builds his house on sand, and when storms come, his house falls apart (Matthew 7:24- 27).

You get the parallel? Trusting in predictability is like building your house on sand. Once things don’t go to plan, you fall apart. Personally, I’m still learning how to build my house on the rock. It means putting my faith in something much greater and unchanging. It means trusting that when I’m not in control, God still is. It’s creating a plan for when things don’t go to plan.

Build your house on the rock. It’s a much better way to live.

2. The Most Worthwhile Things Require Intention

Things don’t just happen because you want them to. Books don’t sell on their own. Relationships don’t grow on their own. Businesses don’t become successful on their own. The most worthwhile things require effort. You have to intentionally work on them, not just hope. It may seem obvious, but the older I get, the harder this is to put into practice. There are so many things to do—work, taxes, chores, budgets, [insert any adulting thing here], etc.—that it’s hard to expend the energy to do things you actually want to do. 

“Things weren’t this hard when I first had you,” my mom said to me out of the blue the other day. We’re having to shoulder more and more responsibilities while distractions multiply day by day.

We live in a difficult world, but what makes it all worthwhile is investing in things that matter: people, dreams, the things we love to do.

3. I’m a Writer Second

I’m a human being first. I’m a writer second.

For so long, as a freelance writer and self-published author, I felt the pressure of living up to those titles. Write, sell, market, write something that will sell, plan your book this way, write your novel that way… It was so stressful that all the “help” I was getting from the pros was counterproductive. I was writing less, not more. And it only got worse as the small amount I was writing didn’t measure up to my cherished identity as a writer.

I got to a point where I had to embrace a different identity because “writer” was based on outward approval alone. I started to prioritise myself instead—not in a selfish way, but realising that I needed to take care of myself to write well. That meant taking breaks. Not writing every single day. Setting aside intentional time to rest. Prioritising my relationships with people and God. Figuring out my own way of writing rather than having others tell me what I could and couldn’t do. And I started writing more—on my own terms.

A writer is what you do, not what you are. Don’t base your worth on what you produce. Find your identity in something unchanging. Discover who you are, and everything else will fall into place.

Maybe these lessons are obvious. Maybe they’re difficult. Maybe you’ve heard them all before. Regardless, I hope you found at least one nugget of wisdom in today’s post.

Build your house on the rock. Work for your dreams. And never forget who you are.

Happy writing!
—E.J.

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Photo by Aleksandr Ledogorov on Unsplash