Noticing Newbies

Hello, himmel. Welcome to WDC.

That moment you're referring to when your mind tells you that your writing is stupid is called resistance. It's a subset of fear. I spent many years writing to myself - only a handful of people ever read my stuff until I was given the best piece of advice I've ever received from a very close friend.

She read a few of my notebooks (without my consent) because I had left my backpack open and fell asleep on her couch. She saw them in there and decided she would take them out and read them. I woke up to her blowing her nose. She was crying.
The first thing I noticed was 2 of my notebooks were on the floor and one in her hand. My first thought was, "Oh crap, did I write something bad about her?" But then I realized that I would never do that because she was awesome.
I asked her, "What's wrong, why are you crying?"
She said, "People need to see this. Why aren't you showing people this stuff?"
"I don't know."
"You need to write everyday. Promise me you will do that."

That last line gave me strength and is something that has stuck with me since 1998. It's almost like she handed me a legendary sword that looks like a pen.
I think about her often and I don't know what ever happened to her. I haven't seen her since 2001, but I know she'd be happy to hear that I have earned about a 90% on my promise of writing everyday since then.

My point is this: Writing is not easy. Sitting down to write is not easy. Staring at the cursor as the cursor makes faces at you is not easy. Resistance shows up in many forms to prevent you from writing - or at least it makes your creative energy suffer.
Just start writing. Write about how annoying the blinking cursor is. Tell the cursor (through your writing) how much you wish you could jump into the screen and choke it out for mocking you. (Yes, I've done that)
If you feel you have writer's block - write about it. Write about how you wish you could get past the writer's block and then begin to write the most ridiculous things that come into your mind. Do something like this-

"My monkey's treehouse has a leak in the floor. Instead of patching the hole, he bought a school bus with no seats - waterproofed it and parked it under the tree. Now, the rain falls into the school bus. This has been going on for about 4 years...Yesterday I went out there and we had a nice time in his school bus-shaped pool."

That is stupid, right? I will probably never use that but at least my fingers got some exercise. My mind is beginning to focus and things will begin to move.

Plus, you have to keep in mind that the first draft of anything is crap. Just fly through..be messy with the words, don't worry about grammar in any form. Nobody will see the first draft. Just get the ideas out and then go back and make it look beautiful. It's a process for sure, but it's worth it.

I could write you a short story on this topic. I don't want to do that on here but I could probably look through all my older writings and find a few pieces that deal with beating Mr. Resistance.

I will look tonight and see what I can find. Until then, Write on and welcome to WDC.


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