I'm On It.
Okay, so I've been reading this book on procrastination, and how to stop it. I love reading books on how to do things way more than I like actually doing things (which just feeds into my natural procrastinatory bent). Part of the reason I'm reading this book is to figure out how much of my procrastination has to do with me being lazy (I'm guessing it's a big part-I am REALLY lazy and complacent about a lot of things, and it's not working out so well for me lately) and how much is maybe some other pinpointable cause that can be specifically and mercilessly dealt with. And this is what I've gathered so far (I'm only halfway through the book):
I am afraid of both success AND failure. I kind of knew this already. Or at least suspected. Also I am a perfectionist. I never ever knew or even suspected that I could be a perfectionist on account of I never do anything perfectly and don't ever even try and perfectionists are usually people way different from me...way different than I...I hate the word different sometimes.
But apparently part of the reason I don't try to do things I'd like to do is because I have no hope of doing them right/perfectly, and I don't want to waste my time on hopeless pursuits. Which makes sense (who does?), but maybe I'm looking at said pursuits wrong, or expecting the wrong things from them, and that thought is one you all can figure out for yourself and it's kind of obvious and boring so I'll move on.
The most interesting-or the most helpful, rather-thing I've gathered from this little orange book borrowed from my mother is this: it's okay if something I want to do/accomplish is hard. If it doesn't come naturally. If I have to really work at it to get the results I want. And I don't just mean regular hard work that you would expect to be a part of doing anything worth doing; I get that and am a little bit afraid of it on account of I really don't like working hard, which is a problem I need to get over because I don't want to grow up into someone I hate, but working hard at something you're enjoying because it is flowing and working at hard at something that feels like pulling teeth because none of the words you are choosing are the right ones and you can't find the right ones and it's all pretty terrible are two very different kinds of working hard.
I'm a writer-and I say that even though I still feel totally audacious making such a claim, especially now that I know PEOPLE I KNOW are reading this blog (thanks, Lady in White), and admitting to PEOPLE I KNOW that I have these aspirations when I have nothing to show for it except a lot of talk (none of them have read any of my work yet) is kind of embarrassing and part of the aforementioned perfectionist twinge I never knew I had-and writing is hard. Whenever I write and it is terrible and embarrassing I feel like such a fraud, like if I were a REAL writer, the words would just fall out of my brain onto the page, perfectly formed, like how all the other writers in the world do...right? But this book makes the point that it's okay if your first attempt is not magical-it's okay.
I don't know why that is such a foreign concept to me-probably everyone already knows that and has known it for a hundred years-but it was really kind of freeing to realize that if I have to rewrite the same section twelve times before I get something good, that's just a part of the process. I think what it is is that I don't trust myself, don't trust my skill/talent-I feel like anything I do that's good, that does not suck, is because there's this genie, or magic monkey, or whatever in my brain that's doing it-it can't be me that's doing it, or else I'd be doing it all the time, right? I wouldn't have those (most of the time) moments of agony, seeing so clearly what I'm trying to say in my head, and being totally FAIL at transferring them to paper...but I do have those moments-both the magic genie ones and wretched wretchedness ones...and yet, it's okay if it doesn't come naturally, effortlessly, to me every time (sometimes it kind of does, and ohmyword it is so amazing). And it's even okay if it does come naturally to every other writer out there.
Hmmm...I feel like I should have some conclusion, some finishing thought, but every sentence I write keeps leading me down the path of discussing the muse, which...is too big for this conversation. And maybe I just answered it. Sometimes the writing flows, and I forget that I'm riding in a car somewhere in Northern California, I forget that someone is sitting beside me and I'm not somewhere in England, a long time ago-and sometimes everything I write is lame. And that's okay.
I am afraid of both success AND failure. I kind of knew this already. Or at least suspected. Also I am a perfectionist. I never ever knew or even suspected that I could be a perfectionist on account of I never do anything perfectly and don't ever even try and perfectionists are usually people way different from me...way different than I...I hate the word different sometimes.
But apparently part of the reason I don't try to do things I'd like to do is because I have no hope of doing them right/perfectly, and I don't want to waste my time on hopeless pursuits. Which makes sense (who does?), but maybe I'm looking at said pursuits wrong, or expecting the wrong things from them, and that thought is one you all can figure out for yourself and it's kind of obvious and boring so I'll move on.
The most interesting-or the most helpful, rather-thing I've gathered from this little orange book borrowed from my mother is this: it's okay if something I want to do/accomplish is hard. If it doesn't come naturally. If I have to really work at it to get the results I want. And I don't just mean regular hard work that you would expect to be a part of doing anything worth doing; I get that and am a little bit afraid of it on account of I really don't like working hard, which is a problem I need to get over because I don't want to grow up into someone I hate, but working hard at something you're enjoying because it is flowing and working at hard at something that feels like pulling teeth because none of the words you are choosing are the right ones and you can't find the right ones and it's all pretty terrible are two very different kinds of working hard.
I'm a writer-and I say that even though I still feel totally audacious making such a claim, especially now that I know PEOPLE I KNOW are reading this blog (thanks, Lady in White), and admitting to PEOPLE I KNOW that I have these aspirations when I have nothing to show for it except a lot of talk (none of them have read any of my work yet) is kind of embarrassing and part of the aforementioned perfectionist twinge I never knew I had-and writing is hard. Whenever I write and it is terrible and embarrassing I feel like such a fraud, like if I were a REAL writer, the words would just fall out of my brain onto the page, perfectly formed, like how all the other writers in the world do...right? But this book makes the point that it's okay if your first attempt is not magical-it's okay.
I don't know why that is such a foreign concept to me-probably everyone already knows that and has known it for a hundred years-but it was really kind of freeing to realize that if I have to rewrite the same section twelve times before I get something good, that's just a part of the process. I think what it is is that I don't trust myself, don't trust my skill/talent-I feel like anything I do that's good, that does not suck, is because there's this genie, or magic monkey, or whatever in my brain that's doing it-it can't be me that's doing it, or else I'd be doing it all the time, right? I wouldn't have those (most of the time) moments of agony, seeing so clearly what I'm trying to say in my head, and being totally FAIL at transferring them to paper...but I do have those moments-both the magic genie ones and wretched wretchedness ones...and yet, it's okay if it doesn't come naturally, effortlessly, to me every time (sometimes it kind of does, and ohmyword it is so amazing). And it's even okay if it does come naturally to every other writer out there.
Hmmm...I feel like I should have some conclusion, some finishing thought, but every sentence I write keeps leading me down the path of discussing the muse, which...is too big for this conversation. And maybe I just answered it. Sometimes the writing flows, and I forget that I'm riding in a car somewhere in Northern California, I forget that someone is sitting beside me and I'm not somewhere in England, a long time ago-and sometimes everything I write is lame. And that's okay.