I woke up this morning with a pounding headache. My little Emily asked, “Mama, why do you have a headache?” I explained to her that I get headaches due to a number of causes…low humidity, stress, sleeping with too many pillows or with my head in the wrong position, and if I have too much chocolate or caffeine.

I couldn’t tell you what the reason was today. There was low humidity, but hubby got the humidifiers all pumping away this morning. I fell asleep with two pillows instead of one under my head and I’ve had more than my fair share of stress recently. So who knows?

In any case, I couldn’t bring myself to eat until the pain subsided to a manageable level (about 1/2 an hour ago) and I fixed bacon and eggs and sat down to eat breakfast while I continued to read Stephen King’s “On Writing.”

Something he said, or perhaps my emotional state, which is often threadbare when I am in pain, brought the tears to my eyes.

He wrote, “You must not come lightly to the blank page.”

As I write this, I feel the tears and emotion gathering again. I know my brain is still hurting, and that makes me vulnerable, but I think that the words too are incredibly powerful. The concept of “not coming lightly” to your life or your life’s work strikes a chord deep inside.

In “Handed My Own Life” Annie Dillard writes that we “do what we do out of our private passion for the thing itself” which, to me, says much the same thing as King is relaying.

Approach your dreams with focus and intensity and dedication. This is not a test run, it is not a “gee, I guess I’ll try it”…this is your life!

What is it that you want from your life?

What is it that you want more than anything?

Close your eyes. Visualize it. Imagine yourself in the future you so desperately want.

You must not come lightly to that future.