#pushing through

Robert Rauschenberg - Postcard Self-Portrait, Black Mountain (I). 1952

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The opposite of anxiety is not calmness, it is desire. Anxiety and desire are two, often conflicting, orientations to the unknown. Both are tilted toward the future. Desire implies a willingness, or a need, to engage this unknown, while anxiety suggests a fear of it. Desire takes one out of oneself, into the possibility of relationship, but it also takes one deeper into oneself. Anxiety turns one back on oneself, but only onto the self that is already known. There is nothing mysterious about the anxious state; it leaves one teetering in an untenable and all too familiar isolation. There is rarely desire without some associated anxiety: We seem to be wired to have apprehension about that which we cannot control, so in this way, the two are not really complete opposites. But desire gives one a reason to tolerate anxiety and a willingness to push through it.

✨This isn’t photography but I wanted to post my newest piece of art✨

YES!! i am LOL unfortunate events though let me quickly recap

- lost wallet during a trip, over a hundred in cash

- laptop overheated and shut down on me permanently so its practically a piece of junk now which is very fun

- also lost my sony headphones

- had the worst breakout of my life a day literally a day before going out on a date

This is a hard part of the writing process to get over, because when you hit this wall, it's hard to see around it. Realistically, you know you have to push through this crappy draft version to get to anything concrete. In practice, though, that's hard to do, especially when you have this grand vision that you just can't get down on paper. Here are some ideas to try:

The sounding board of a second opinion. Often talking your writing woes out with someone will help you figure out how to solve them, even if what that person suggests isn't anything close to what you actually want to do. I went through this process with my writing group earlier this week - in explaining a vague idea for Nanowrimo, a fellow writer made a suggestion that wouldn't work for my story - but it did help me figure out a missing piece of the puzzle to get that concept into a working story. Talking to people about your story can help.

Rubber duck it. Finding people you can comfortably talk to about writing is much easier said than done. Sometimes you slog through alone, and when that's the case, pull out the rubber duck method. It works for coders, it works for engineers, and it can work for you. Slap your favorite figurine or stuffed animal down in front of you, and let yourself talk through the problem. It'll feel awkward, and it might be slow-going, but it can really help if you try. I have a plushie of Gritty who sees all and judges, but dang is he helpful in working out what to do.

Speaking of Nanowrimo... I know you're worried about writing a lot of stuff that won't work out in the long run, but sometimes that's how writing works. You need to push through it, and sometimes writing a lot of garbage is the only way to do it. Erin Morgenstern originally wrote THE NIGHT CIRCUS during Nanowrimo - but as she admits, 100k of that original work didn't even include the main character and never made it to the final version. You gotta be okay with writing garbage. You will find your way through it, even though it might seem like it's going nowhere.