When is your courage at its highest? For me it’s morning, just after my first cup of tea. It’s not that I feel I can do anything, but I haven’t yet accumulated the excuses of why I can’t accomplish what I want to.

That’s why I do my blog in the morning. I am rested and filled with gentle caffeine. I can let my fingers roll across the keyboard and warm up my writing brain.

Sometimes I need to use that early morning courage for something else, which was the case today. Duotrope sent me their weekly newsletter and I realized that one of the markets was perfect for the short story I wrote two weeks ago. But they wanted an author’s bio and a photo. I knew that if I waited until this afternoon to write up my author’s bio, I wouldn’t get it done. Fear would overwhelm me. Nothing would look right. I’d delay and delay. My critical voice would propose that the author’s bio is too critical and must be perfect.

So I wrote up what is probably an imperfect, inadequate author’s bio, rolled my short story through Prowritingaid to exterminate any typos that remained, and submitted the story.

Then it occurred to me that if I had the courage at this moment to send out stories, I shouldn’t stop at one. So I spent the morning searching for markets and sending out stories until I got to an anthology that would be perfect for about half the stories I’ve written and froze with indecision.

I’ll get back to that one later. Perhaps tomorrow just after my first cup of tea. Meanwhile, I’ll write.

I hope you are filled with courage today and all days. Writing is the province of heroes. Be well, friends.