I find myself in a quandary today. I am trying to think of something useful to write that will be interesting to those who read my blog (since I know there's a few of you, hi all!). Yet I find myself stumped. For the first time in awhile I find that I am excited to be working on my writing (say hello to the cable being out for 4 days, it's back now but I can pretend it's still out >.>), yet I can't think of anything to write here and writing my novel terrifies me.
Maybe that's something to talk about. Have you ever written something that terrifies you to continue? I don't even know why working on my novel freaks me out so much. Maybe I'm afraid of success. Or maybe it's failure. Or possibly both. Though if I'm so afraid of failure I don't know why I wouldn't have finished it already twice over! You'd think in that case I'd want to finish it so I wouldn't feel like a failure, so I guess that leaves that I must be afraid of success.
I had a really bad experience with a critique group that was repeated in my classes in university rather too many times for my liking. At that point I was so crushed because of the things I let other people tell me I had no spirit left with which to write. I tried art, computers, anything to get me out of my writing funk but it really just came down to the fact that I didn't think I could do it anymore. I let mean people who didn't know what they were talking about any better than I did tell me that I wasn't good enough. In all fairness I had esteem issues before that class so it probably hit me a lot worse than anyone intended, but there it is.
Now I've let that affect me for far, far too long. I've got to realize that yeah, it happened, some people didn't like my work, so what? I don't have any less to say, it doesn't make me less creative, it doesn't make my world less likely to be written. The only thing that has any affect on any of those things is me, myself, and I. So it's about time that I take responsibility for that.
The first rule of writing is to write. So if I'm going to follow those rules then I need to stop making excuses, stop blaming everything else around me and go write. So let me encourage you to do the same. If you're serious about your writing, if this is what you really want to do with your life, stop making excuses, find the moments, find the time, find the courage, and just go write. That's what I'm going to do.
Rawr. Reading your blog makes me wanna write again and I just don't have time right now. But man, I can't wait to start again. Guess that's a good thing! Think I might even pick up blogging again. I did it but I lost consistency after a month or two. But I guess with no school on the horizon, shouldn't be too hard. Miss writers' chit-chats too :(
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I would suggest that you not start the blog until you've got a steady schedule for your novel. The thing I've been finding is that it's good to keep me to a schedule but where I'll force myself to come and write a post (even when I don't want to) so that I HAVE a post written, I won't force myself to go work on my novel. I've got so many excuses and things to do, even when there's really nothing better to do... I've got to stop playing on my computer or watching tv when I could be writing. It's hard to shift over though when there's nothing lost or gained by the stupid stuff that I do that eats up time. I haven't quite figured out how to stop procrastinating... I'm still working on it! I would encourage you to consider everything you're doing in your day and see if there's any place that you could switch over to writing instead if you're serious about it.
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