Real Men Write

 (Mostly for the males among us but curious females may listen in.)

Several years ago, I stood on the coast in Africa and watched fishermen battle the waves. Early in the morning, they rowed heavy, hand-carved, wooden canoes into the deep and threw out a long net in a gigantic, half-mile semicircle. When the weighted edge of the net sank to the ocean floor, the men returned to shore where the real work began. 

They lined up, muscle to brawn, a dozen men on each end of the net. They leaned back in unison, adding weight to strength and began wrestling the net from the sea. Hand over hand, hour by hour, they pulled on the ropes. Muscles bulged. Sweat poured. They were winning. The mound of rope behind them grew and was curled into a coil by a friend. Net itself was added to the pile until a pocket of fish came to shore. Food for another day was secured.

Eking out a living from the ocean is no joke. Fighting waves and man-eating sea monsters is a body building occupation. Even teens have muscles like this: 

Sometimes I get the feeling that young men aren't as psyched about writing as they are about bulging muscles or machinery or other he-man-ho stuff. I think it is because they forget that Peter, James, and John were fishermen. They hauled in nets, wrestling wind and waves to bring in their catch. They pulled heavy wooden boats onto a sandy shore. They built muscles modern guys need to pay gym memberships to attain.

The disciples weren't pasty-white,
scrawny, quill-holders,
working by dim oil lamps 
while writing the New Testament.

They were bronzed,
muscled men
with biceps like telephone poles
who wrote letters 
that changed the world.

Let them be your inspiration. 

The next time you are together with your friends and they want to talk about bench pressing and basketball and muscle-y stuff,
gang up on them and give them your latest word count. 

(I think I'm onto something.)

Real men write!