Being a writer isn’t easy. Neither is being an artist. Lots of people say they’d like to be an artist or writer, but they can’t because of x or y or z. Money. Health Insurance, etc. The truth is they don’t because it’s harder than working a 9 to 5 job with benefits or having a career that’s manageable and doesn’t tax them much. I know because I’ve done both.

The truth is it takes bravery and drive to be creative. Some people have the drive, and use it to make huge pots of money. Some people have the bravery and use it to save people from burning buildings. But if you’re lucky to have both, you can make it as a writer. But you have to be willing to go uncomfortable places and take a path that doesn’t look like everyone else’s through life. Kind of like these zinnias who found a tiny bit of dirt in a crack in the sidewalk, pushed through and spread their fabulousness. If they had waited around for a garden bed they would never have grown at all.

When do you find the time to write?

I hear this a lot from writers who think more about writing than actually write. I tell them it’s not easy. I work full time. I work out 5-7 times a week. I like my 7 hours of sleep and seeing friends and eating home cooked meals. I have a teenager that needs to be driven places. And I find time for all those things. Why not writing, too?

The truth is that you don’t need 8 hours of uninterrupted time. You don’t even need two hours. You can use the time that exists in the cracks of your day–a lunch break, early in the morning, during your commute–to write just 250 or 500 or 1000 words a day. It doesn’t seem like much at first, but it adds up. Eventually you will have created enough words to fill a book if you keep at it. And it isn’t publishing or hitting the NY Times bestseller list that makes you a writer, it is the brave act of creating day and after that does. You have found your crack in the sidewalk and you are all set to burst forth and be fabulous.