I came across this awesome piece of life advice the other day: The fatal mistake is waiting for life’s circumstances to be right before we begin. Simply begin with your heart, look deeply into it and trust what you feel. Practice knowing and you will know. -- Hugh Prather This is something that DEFINITELY applies to writers, but, truth be told, it applies to everyone! For years, I stopped writing simply because I didn't have the time, I didn't have a story to tell, or I just had no desire to write. Suddenly, one day the desire to write struck me, but all those nagging doubts remained in the back of my mind. Had I listened to them, I would never have continued my journey down the path to being the writer I want to be. Let's be honest: life is never going to set your ducks up in a row and make things "just right" for you to begin doing the things you want to do. You're always going to have the financial, emotional, mental, and physical setbacks that stop you from getting where you want to go. As I sit here writing this, I am ignoring the pain from the slipped disc in my back--an injury that happened just a couple of days ago. I still have to sit and write, for that is my duty to myself. If I don't write, I am doing myself a disservice. It would be "waiting" when I should be "beginning". Yes, life is going to be incredibly hard! That's the hallmark of life. Life doesn't make things easy, and it constantly throws crap in your road just to see what you're made of. That doesn't mean you shouldn't start doing what you want to do! If you want to start learning to play the tuba, learn to read music until you can afford to pay for the lessons. If your goal is to become the world's best programmer, start hammering out HTML code on your funky tablet until you can afford a proper computer. No matter what you want to do, start doing it now. Look into your heart, and feed off the desire that is there. You can always make time for the things that really matter to you, so just start doing whatever it is you want to do, and figure out the rest as you go!