Forgetting to Breathe

I knew this would happen.  It's been over a month since I wrote anything for this blog.  When I started it, I had no idea how I could keep it up.  People told me it would be no problem and it wasn't, particularly.  

Then I got really busy.  In my day job I teach at a university and the end of a semester is always rough.  It's especially hard when there are also holiday cards that need to be written and mailed and all that sort of thing.  You know the drill.  So I didn't get the blog done.  So what, right?

Well, not really.  Not writing the blog paralleled another problem.  I have been going around feeling as if I couldn't breathe.  Stress, I told myself.  Then I realized that not only had I not been writing the blog, I hadn't been writing anything else.  I was reading an email from my agent when it struck me: she was looking forward to reading something I hadn't written.  Nothing unusual there.  But this was not just something I hadn't written but something I wasn't actively writing. Writing is is like breathing for me in a way.  I need to do it to live.

So here's a blog entry and a reminder, to myself and to anyone like me: if you are a writer, don't forget to write.