It’s much bigger than seven, the list of things you give up. It’s also much smaller.

There’s really just one item on the list.

The sense you’re ever really done.

There’s always another blog post to write. Another page or two in your novel that can be churned out. Another client project to tackle and finish up. Another of any number of other things that you can be working on.

I don’t remember who it was, but someone on Twitter a while ago said something along the lines of “Being a writer is fun because it’s like you always have homework and then you die.” Too true.

It might just be me, but I’m always pondering the kinds of things I could be writing. Even if I’m taking a little bit of downtime or trying to sleep, I’m thinking about something to write. I’m working on the opening of a freelance piece or trying to arrange a client project in my head or cracking the next step of a fiction story.

There are lots of things you have to get over. But the fact that there’s always something else out there beckoning for your attention is the one thing about being a writer you have to accept immediately or you’ll never survive.

Chris Thilk is a freelance writer and content strategist who lives in the Chicago suburbs.