Excuses, really. I recognize them all. I’ve made these arguments, too. Lack of coffee also has been one of my reasons. But empathy and caffeine-deficiency aside, my response to them (and me) is this: Stop whining and start writing.

Here’s why — it matters.

I’m no Dr. Phil, but I suspect insecurity drives a lot of the reasons for such self-defeating protests. When you think of a writer, it’s easy to attach success only to well-known authors. J.K. Rowling, Stephen King and Philip Roth come to mind.

I’d like to add Sherman Yeary to the group of successful writers. Sherman never made the New York Times Best Sellers List. He didn’t have an agent or a book contract. He self-published four non-fiction works, all centered on his life, family, friends and his beloved community of Ocala, Florida. At the age of 67, Sherman wrote his first book, “The Story Pole,” a memoir about growing up in a small town.

I love his vividly described stories of living in simpler times, falling in love with a local girl, fearlessly fighting beside his B-24 Liberator flight crew in the Big War and returning home to the local girl who became his wife and gave him four daughters to love and spoil.

I love his stories because I love the writer. Sherman Yeary was my father. For most of my life, Dad was a builder in the construction industry, a leader in his church and a dedicated husband and father. He was not, however, considered to be a writer. A heart attack in his 60s prompted Dad to ask questions one typically asks when facing mortality. Dad wanted to find answers for the kind of legacy he’d leave.

He hoped my sisters and I (and our children and their children) would better understand and appreciate Papa’s definition of living the good life.

At 65, Dad signed up for his first writing course at the local college. And he began to write. Before he died 18 years later, Dad had authored “The Story Pole,” “A Time of Summer,” “Main and Magnolia” and “The Courthouse Square.”

A few weeks ago, I received a copy of “The Story Pole” in the mail. It came from a friend who took time to write me a beautiful letter about this book’s journey from Dad to one of his relatives who had kept it all these years.

For three decades, I’ve been writing. I get it honestly, right? I’ve written everything from magazine features to newspaper columns to a newly launched blog. I’ve also written a novel that is currently unpublished. I’m at work on a memoir and have no idea where that will take me.

Some days, I get hung up on the traditional definition of literary success and the wide gap between me and that expectation.

Then I look at Dad’s book and remember what it has meant to me, my family and many others. I think, “What the heck?” Maybe one day I’ll self-publish my own stories.

And maybe one day my children will get a package in the mail with one of my books. And they’ll remember.

Dad dedicated his first book, “The Story Pole,” to mom for typing it (God bless her) and to his writing instructor at the college, “whose encouragement helped me to know we all have a story to tell.”

Yes, we do.