One year ago today, All I Know was published. I proclaimed myself a writer. I felt like a writer. And then I kind of stopped writing.

Writers write. That’s what I’ve heard and said many times. The thing that defines someone as a writer is the act of writing. Come to think of it, that really applies to anything in life. We become what we do. Our thoughts and actions guide our identity, our beliefs about ourselves.

The past year has felt like a bit of a busy blur. Almost all good stuff, but still busy. Several trips to Florida for holidays and significant events. Teaching two sections of my class at Santa Clara (dropping back to one class next year because it was too much). My regular retinue of therapy clients. Work on our house. Plenty of reasons/excuses for not writing.

Yet the fact remains that I want to write and haven’t been doing it. And I miss it, so once again I am starting. I think lots of people feel too embarrassed to start again after many thwarted attempts, and I get that because I feel embarrassed as well…to say I’m blogging again, that I’m recommitting to writing again…because I have said it before and then not maintained the commitment. But the choice is to give up altogether, and I am not willing to do that. So I’ll live with the embarrassment of past and potential future failure, and try again.

You may remember Yoda’s admonishment to Luke in The Empire Strikes Back, “Do, or do not. There is no try.” I contemplate that quite a bit and have for 40+ years because for all of Yoda’s wisdom, I’m pretty sure I disagree with him there. I believe that it’s really all about trying, whether or not you succeed in the doing. But the trying only counts, perhaps, if you really try, if you believe in the potential for success as you are trying. Maybe that’s what Yoda is talking about…no half-hearted, bullshit trying. You have to try with the expectation that you can succeed.

I also realize that Yoda says this in response to Luke’s whiny complaining that he can’t do it, it’s too hard, which reminds me of when my kids were little and they were “trying” to find something by standing in one spot and moving their head from one side to another. That isn’t actually trying. Trying is getting on the ground and looking under the bed, opening drawers, retracing your steps, checking the car. I think Yoda is talking about that first type of trying that isn’t really trying. I think he might be okay with real trying, even if you don’t succeed. I mean, I don’t know. He was a Jedi, and I’m not.

In a way, writing this blog now is kind of cheating. I’m acting like I am in the midst of some reckoning, but really, I am already through it, which is what gives me the confidence to actually share all this with you. I just finished a pretty solid draft of my new book, so I am feeling more like a writer again. I’ve started to wake up with ideas for the next book and writing it. So my thoughts and beliefs are already shifted.

I am trying. The question is will I do it? I’m going to go with Dr. Seuss on this one: “And will you succeed? Yes you will indeed! (98 ¾ percent guaranteed).”