I’m starting on this during my lunch break again. I had hoped to put in a half hour before work, but I didn’t manage to get up early enough or be efficient enough for that. I should be able to get a good solid 15 or 20 minutes during lunch, and I don’t have any plans tonight.
Today’s theme in the books is how we have a tendency to come up with a bunch of super important tasks as soon as we sit down to write, and why that might be. The author says that “you really do want to write, but it’s also hard and difficult and scary and opens up all kinds of scars and anxieties that your rational mind doesn’t want to have to deal with”
Yes, that. Exactly that. I have a whole bunch of things that I have walls, moats, alligators and armed guards around. And I can say with some level of certainty that I am one of the more self-aware people I know because at least I’m not lying about what’s behind those defenses. I know on the other side of that wall is child abuse, bullying, fear of poverty, body hate, sexual assault, betrayal, violence, fear, extremely low opinions about myself, horrible theories about my tendency towards being abused and abandoned, and so on. I have some really scary shit going on in there. I have gone to therapy, I journal, I read self-help books, and honestly, I have dealt with all of this on a conscious level about as much as I’m able/willing to do. Most of these things happened in the long past, and the ones that are more recent I don’t want to explore or confront the people involved. I have decided for my own emotional safety to do something, anything to distract myself when these thoughts come up.
Writing brings them up. Almost without fail my characters will experience the same horrible things I have. I don’t think I could write a wealthy, attractive, popular character who was loved and nurtured by her parents. If I did it would come across as fake or hallow, hmmm much like those sorts of people do…
As a writer you have to write the truth, as you know it into each story, each plot, each character. Not every main character is exactly me, but they all have parts of me. There is a reason so many fictional characters are writers because they are written by writers. You write what you know.
When I’m writing more, I tend to feel more. I tend to think about my fears more. When I write my emotions get turned up. This last month I have been crying more, angry at myself more, afraid more, scared more. I know that comes out in my blog posts. They have become almost a self-therapy journal in some places. I think this is why drug and alcohol addiction is so common in writers, you need something to turn down the feelings. The average person spends a lot of time everyday distracting themselves from feeling, a writer has to sort of jump into it and wallow. It’s not healthy. Or maybe it is, I don’t know.
However, not all of the anxiety and associated stalling is avoidance of emotions. I have definitely let some things slide, especially this week. Some of the important things I think about needed to do before I write are actually things I probably should do.
The book wants me to make a master to-do list and a to-do list for today, but I have already done that! I do that every day, so yay! I’m ahead on something!
She wants us to put a little effort today into getting some of the other things done off of our list.
A few things I need to work on are:
-Get back to working on the KonMari tidies, Dresses are next on my list
– Clean the kitchen
-Watch a video of Jim Butcher talking about writing process
-Finish laundry
-Go to the gym
I’m going to work something on this list for 30 minutes directly after work before I get back to writing. I will be giving myself an upper limit on writing time tonight and a reward if I do it. I want to write a total of 2 hours, and once I do I will spend the rest of the evening doing fun things, any fun things I want, like TV, reading or coloring.
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I cleaned the kitchen and did some laundry for a little over 30 minutes. It’s not perfect, but as you can see it’s a damn sight better than it was. I also made a decent dinner, listened to a podcast while I ate and washed the dinner dishes. Having a less disgusting kitchen makes me feel way better than I did before. I hate feeling like I live in filth. I’m ok with a little bit of a mess, but dirty dishes, unwashed laundry, unscooped litter boxes, and things like that really stress me out.
Now in a slightly lower stress space, I’m going to write. Working on poetry with the hope of being able to submit something tomorrow.
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I finished the first draft of a poem about two of my favorite things, Death and cats. I think this one has real promise. I look forward to reading and editing it tomorrow.
Total writing time 2 hours 8 minutes
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