Congratulations! You’re done! Now what??

Write everyday.

Don’t Stop.

Finish.

This advice, as best as I can remember, was one of the last pieces of guidance handed down by my professor before I finished my master’s degree in nonfiction writing. Fast-forward a week later, and here I sit—invited out to a writing group where the only requirement was to sit and write. No conversation needed. You just had to show up. It was an email sent from above, because honestly, I don’t feel much drive to write anything at all anytime soon.

About a million years ago, I was an ensign stationed on a warship and struggling to earn a surface warfare qualification. This qualification comes in the form of a gold pin that is bestowed upon an officer when he or she demonstrates proficiency in the areas of seamanship, warfighting, and explaining how a drop of seawater becomes a drop of coffee in the wardroom coffee pot. I remember when the captain pinned me, he explained that the device did not make me an expert—but rather it was a license to continue learning.

We’ve only just begun…

“Ha!” was my initial reaction. I had just endured countless hours memorizing the ship’s combat systems, learning how to be an officer of the deck underway, and other fun stuff like sitting in aft steering for hours on end. Upon earning my qualification, I had no desire whatsoever to learn another thing as long as I was on that ship. I was tired.

If you’re even half as old as me you already realize that acquiring life skills never stops. This is a concept that has taken me a long time to grasp—and I’m not even sure I’m there yet. Indeed, every time someone has smashed a mortarboard on top of my head and pronounced me graduated, I have in the short term falsely assumed that learning receive mode was over. All I had to do now was live.

By completing my writing degree I no longer feel as though this is the case. Instead, I’m walking out of Johns Hopkins University wondering whether I’ll ever write again. Despite the fact that I continue to hear my teacher’s voice echoing in my brain: Write everyday. Don’t stop. Finish.

If this Internet quiz says that I should be a writer, then it must be true.

I haven’t written every day in what feels like months. I feel as though the well is dry. I graduated from the program surrounded by talented and supportive people who seem light years ahead of me in terms of proficiency, production, and publication. It is this insecurity that makes me half-believe that I may never write again.

Will this be the case?

I’d like to think that I’m just tired and need a break. And maybe I will take a holiday in some sunny place—but in doing so, there’s a part of me that fears once I go on a writing vacation, I might just decide to stay on Duval Street forever. Destined to regale uninterested tourists with claims that I was once a promising scribe but then chopped off my writing finger. This is a legitimate concern.

“You see, what happened was…”

And so when I got an invitation from a friend to joining her writing group, the idea did make me weary—but I also knew that I needed to go. I no longer work on a 509-foot destroyer where I must stand on the bridge and try not to crash the thing for four hours at a time whenever we go out to sea. I desperately need some accountability. I need writing groups, I need friends who can give me honest edits, and of course I also need to keep posting crap on this website.

I’m still not sure what all of this will become as I move along down the road and beyond my Navy life. For now, I have succeeded in throwing down the gauntlet, challenging myself to really try something that scares me. Driving a ship is procedurally simple, but writing with brutal honesty for me is something that is both ballsy and terrifying. So is dabbling in something that provides me with no income whatsoever. But still, writing remains something that keeps my body and soul mechanisms going. Without writing, I’m a pretty miserable person.

People have noticed that I have accomplished something. This is both wonderful and frightening.

If anyone is still reading, by now you have figured out that the point of this entry is to put myself on report. While I may have big life moves on the horizon, and my days will become harried as I work to keep ties with so many people in this city, I will still fight to continue posting. And now that my ass has been sitting in this chair for an hour, I once again do feel as though I’ve got a lot to say. The key now will be ensuring that whatever I write becomes something that is interesting for everyone else, too. God I hope that’s the case.

Trying not to aim for brilliance. Just a little bit of self-respect and accountability.

So once again, this is the point where my newest license to learn comes into play. As I struggle to continue untangling these word strings, I will do my best to fulfill the writer’s version of a Navy-style taut and vigilant watch. I’ll endeavor to show up on time, take the job seriously—and if I discover an entire cherry pie inexplicably stashed under the table of the Boatswain’s Mate of the Watch, then I will simply chalk it up as useful fodder for my life’s work.