#bleurghhh

That feeling when you’ve stared at a computer screen for wayyyyy too long

scruffy little girl :) today was okay—everyone still has the nerve to be working or out of town and I am so bad at getting myself out of the house to do weekend activities if I don’t have a buddy!! but we did do a long walk and I did a bunch of chores, wrote for a while, reread a very long fic, and did a couple hours of real job work. I have been writing more regularly lately which is good but I feel like I’m still just endlessly circling around a number of possible projects, too gun-shy to properly commit the whole of my energy and attention to anything. on weekends especially when I have lots of empty time I feel this intensely visceral longing for that sense of singleminded focus and purpose and clarity I feel when I’m immersed in a big writing project. I know the answer is that I just have to PICK something and get moving! and I have to stop giving myself outs! the fear of committing is such a painfully familiar part of the process and I know the only way I’ve ever gotten through it is by refusing to let myself switch gears and making myself come back to the loathèd object (an imperfect WIP draft) every single day. like I have to just keep showing up to write and I have to refuse to let myself rationalize my way out of working on something. my brain will always be able to conjure up a million trillion gazillion reasons that this project will inevitably fail and should therefore be abandoned, but that shiny half-formulated new idea over there is gonna be The One and I’ll magically know how to write it without encountering any obstacles. I know I have to close the escape hatches (and keep closing them as my brain wrenches more and more of them open). but I also feel like because it’s been so long since I finished anything I can’t really remember what the early stages of my successful projects felt like. was I more in love with those ideas than I am with these ideas? my gremlin brain is like “yes you must have been and that was why you persisted and the fact that you are struggling now must mean that the ideas you’re tinkering away at are no good and should be left behind.” aghhhhh I know it isn’t true but man oh man I have an overwhelming desire to be writing combined with a paralyzing fear of being actively engaged in the act of writing. how to get out!!