American Idol is over for the year and that cute little paint salesman won. I won’t hear Randy Jackson say “Yo, dog, that’s keepin’ it real” for another nine months or so. But when it comes to my writing career, I am trying to keep it real. My career is a little bud of a thing and I have to nurture it carefully or it may either wither up and die or grow all crazy and gangly with branches I don’t particularly appreciate. My writing takes some forethought and some pruning at times and some blind faith at others. Recently I’ve been a little confused about my writing direction. There are so many things I could do and so many things to write about, classes to take, conferences to attend, books and articles to read, big projects to tackle, I nearly imploded under the weight of it all. So I ran away from home for five days and played with my grandsons and walked the misty beaches of Oregon and read a novel and ate brownies. Now I’m much better. I’m looking at the little mustard seed that is my writing and promising to nurture it carefully. I’m listening for direction, taking it seriously as a mandate from the Lord, but also vowing to relax a little and not stress out when I hit a wall. I’m keeping it real because if I don’t, I’ll have to prune out the dishonesty, the pretensions and the striving anyway. Whoever said being a grown-up was easy? Not me.