A few weeks after returning from a week-long retreat in the Sierras with the Community of Writers in the summer of 2018, a retreat that tremendously improved both the quality and the quantity of my writing, I was suddenly inundated with family obligations. Those obligations were, for the most part, pleasant, but it was clear that they would keep me busy, full-time, for quite some time. It was also clear that the price of refusing would be, in terms of family relationships, extremely high. But the price of accepting them has also been very high: Over the next few months my writing slowed, then stopped altogether. Since then I have unable to write anything worth reading, though I still edit old poems in the hope that if I keep in practice, the part of myself I value the most will start working again.
Don’t stop writing.