Living, Breathing and Writing Sustainability

“A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.”—Franz Kafka

In ecology, sustainability—the capacity to endure—describes how biological systems remain diverse and productive over time. In the Greek, the definition of perseverance means "a hopeful looking towards the future without regard to the circumstances"

Yet, daunting circumstances—the changing publishing industry, finding time to write, receiving honest feedback from a critique group, securing an agent, developing a platform—can discourage an eager, bright-eyed writer. Some stop writing before they even start. Other writers just quit.

As a writer sustainability makes me ask myself these questions. Am I:

• inhaling God’s Word, His written gift to me, to nourish and replenish my inner life? 
• using God’s insights and words in my writing?
• pursuing the gifts God embedded in my creative DNA?
• willing to learn, practice and hone those skills?
• teachable enough to receive critiques that improve my WIP?
• productive when publishing prospects seem dim?
• asking God for the capacity to endure?
• writing about significant issues?
• choosing to encourage, stimulate, challenge, strengthen, inspire or confront through words?

William Shakespeare observed, “No legacy is so rich as honesty.” Like an axe, the truthfulness of the Bible breaks through the frozen soul within. Just as I reached back to my spiritual forerunners who shaped my fundamental values, will the sustainability of my writing life and legacy reach out to my children and their children?


Has writing so gripped you that you feel like Isaac Asimov who said, “I write for the same reason I breathe—because if I didn’t, I would die"? What oxygen of the soul does God want to breathe out through your writing?