Friday, October 19, 2007

Excuses, Confessions

Here's the deal. There hasn't been much posting, because:

1) I've been busy.
2) I'm obsessed with knitting and crocheting.
3) I feel like I have nothing worth saying that anyone would care to even read, hence the mushroom post.
4) I have my head up my ass and am avoiding writing anything

Writing. For some reason that word has provoked anxiety in me for a while now. I'm deliberately choosing to not write; I picked up knitting, exercise, and when I have some free time that's what I do. And now NaNoWrimo is coming around again.

Last November I wrote over 50,000 words in 30 days. I had so much encouragement from my family and friends. I signed up for a class to work on it. And then did nothing. I even blew off sending the 20 page excerpt to the teacher for her expert critique. Now I feel guilty. I feel like I let myself down, I let everyone who encouraged me down... God, am I pathetic and have issues or what? But I made such a big deal about "wanting to be a writer", and I just dropped it, like I do with a lot of things.

I do this shit all the time too. I am aware that I am avoiding something, be it writing a letter, returning a phone call, making an appointment, having a conversation that needs to be had... yet I just keep not getting to it. It's almost like I am standing outside myself watching me being stupid, but being mute and frozen to the ground unable to kick my own ass. And I hate it. It's probably very difficult to understand, and it's kind of sad that I am explaining all this in my blog to the world instead of confiding it to loved ones but somehow this is easier. Because I can take my time and write the words. I can hit back space and cut and paste. I can open the thesaurus and find the word that eludes me. And some Anonymous person from NY threw down the gauntlet. I've always been a "TMI" kind of girl anyway.

Anyway, I hated that manuscript. I can't explain why really, it was just not right. It wasn't the story I set out to tell, I couldn't figure out who the target audience was, I couldn't figure out how to finish it...

So maybe I should just take the advice I often give to others and just let go of what's done and move forward, use Nano to make myself sit down in front of Word and start something. I guess as long as I keep trying maybe one day I'll finish. I managed to finish a scarf and a poncho right?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't know what to make of that post, maybe you should go back to NY.

Anonymous said...

Um, hello, we all do it - it's called being human. I will give you a more detailed psychoanalysis in a private email.

But I wish you would blog more just because you are one of the few sites I can read at work. I need something to do, ya know.

Anonymous said...

I find that it is hard to finish one thing when I am doing 10 things at once.......

don't be so hard on yourself! :-)