Unkicking the habit

Some people might say that it’s a bad idea to work out all of my problems in a public blog on the internet and to them I say: Yeah, probably!!!

I don’t really know what I’m hoping to achieve here, to be quite honest, but I do know that I need to write. And that I require constant validation!! So I realize that these first few posts are all over the place and don’t always make a lot of sense and read more like a diary than any kind of writing project, because a lot of the time my mind is so busy it’s hard to focus on anything, or I’m so tired I can’t think.

This is exercise. My writing is out of shape and out of practice, and while I’ve never been very good at keeping the habit of writing, lately it feels at an all time low. Until I have more to give, I have to give what I have, and I have to do this for myself, because I don’t know what else to do.

For people who don’t know me well, my mother is a published novelist in the genre of Christian fiction. She has two books currently available, and is working on her third. She had an idea for a long time but it took her a while to get it on the page, and then more time to get it to out there.

She did it because she knew she could. Maybe not always, maybe not at first, but she had a story she wanted to tell. I have stories inside of me, and I struggle with getting them out. My mother inspires me because she could have kept them inside, but was determined not to.

Often I fool myself into believing it’s supposed to be easy–that it’s as simple as wanting it, as simple as believing it’s possible. Like The Secret, or something. It’s usually hard for me to take the next step, which is doing the work. I get frustrated, I get distracted, I get scared, and before I can even get started I decide it can’t possibly be worth it, or it won’t be good and I shouldn’t bother.

Honestly, I didn’t set out to write a blog of complaints. If I could finish a tight five I could work all of this out in front of an audience and then cry about it later. But for now I’ll do this!! I don’t know, if you want to pay me to write almost literally anything else I might be into it.