This article needs a point.

This, among other things, I think while retyping my introduction again and again and again... and again. (Has that particular word lost meaning for you now? It has for me...) And while I lack an introduction, there is one wonderful, glorious thing I do not lack: material, material being the deluge of people, conversations, stories, and endless details I encounter each day, wherever I may be. In my honest, most hopeful moments, I thank God for the vast amount of material He has given. I can step out the door and say "what a wonderful world to be a writer in!" But to step outside and see the beauty and potential in the world - and have a kind of Disney princess moment (I'm thinking Rapunzel) - nonetheless leaves me without a point.

This article needs a point, and I promise you, those who have taken the time to read this, that I will give it one. For it is one thing to see the potential in the world, and another to gather the potential, sift it, and discover the things that ring true enough to build an article around. Maybe it is that vague knowledge that made me think, when I was ten years old, that I wanted to write. The world was so full of things strange and fascinating, sorrowful and sad, beautiful and deep. At some point I discovered that putting pen to page helped me to find clarity in all this vastness.

Writing is a part of me. I love language, the way words look on a page, the way they suggest different things in their sounds and spellings, and the way they combine to form things of great power by pinning an idea or emotion to the paper. Though I have only begun to suggest the wonder of words and writing, I now tell you this: I do not write nearly enough. In the midst of endless inspiration, I often fail to pick up a pen. The inspiration remains inspiration, and the point remains elusive, locked in the realm of potential. This is my flaw (among many!): I struggle in compelling myself to begin. I procrastinate. I find myself, after a day of noticing all sorts of fascinating things, still lacking a point.

In a world filled with beauty, I offer to you the sadly overlooked beauty of a deadline. Overlooked, because it tends to be a disguised sort of beauty. Deadlines arrive with pressure and stress, and come much too early. It's rare that I notice the beauty in a deadline as it approaches. Only afterward can I see that the pressure compelled me to begin and helped crystalize the endless inspiration into a singular idea. A point.

While I wrote and rewrote this article's introduction, the beauty in the deadline was invisible to me. But with each sentence, each paragraph, I found once again the joy of writing, and it's the deadline I have to thank for it.

I'm thinking I am not the only one who struggles with procrastination in writing and the horror of a suddenly close deadline. And I am hoping that others, too, may find a touch of beauty in their deadlines, and a perfect point.