Insecure Writer's Support Group- March

Hello all!  It's the first Wednesday of the month and you know what that means!  Time to release our insecurities onto the world.

Thanks as always to the wonderful Ninja Captain Alex and to his fantastic co-hosts this month: Tina Downey, Elsie, Elizabeth Seckman, and Julie Flanders!  You are all wonderful, amazing, fantastic folks and I am so very lucky to be a part of this group.  (If you haven't already, make sure you stop by and thank them!)

Well, I am quite literally drowning in insecurities this month and for very good reason: I haven't been writing.

Many smart, insightful and aware folks have talked about the brain as a muscle that one needs to exercise on a regular basis in order for it to work well.  And since writing is such a particular skill, that muscle has to be well practiced at doing that particular thing in order for one to be a good writer.  Well, my writer's brain has all but atrophied.

Why?  Well, there's a bunch of reasons- some logical, some emotional, all not valid in the end.  Yes, I started a new job which has drastically altered my schedule, changed how my week runs and required me to learn how to do a bunch of things I've never done before (like track and manage money- yuck!).  And yes, that new job requires me to have my computer (which I would normally leave at home to, you know, write on) at work.  (This is probably the #1 issue which needs to be remedied as soon as possible by my purchase of a new home computer.)  And yes, I have been busting my butt in other activities other than writing (I've become a bit of a gym rat- more on that on Friday).

But at the end of the day the number one reason for me not writing is simply the fact that I haven't been writing.  I think about a story I want to write and I start questioning it, over-analyzing it, coming up with reasons why it won't work.  I say that I'm going to just sit down and do it and magically there are a billion things getting in the way.  I start to compose the first sentence in my head and then dismiss it because it simply sucks.  We all know this process- we've all done it.  And most of us, I believe, know the solution to it: just write.

I've been in this game more than long enough to know exactly what I need to do to fix my problem.  I just need to freakin' write already.  And yeah, it may be a pain in the ass to cart my computer from work to home and back again in order to do that- but I can't keep, you know, NOT writing.  That's just not gonna fly.

So this is me saying to you what I need to hear right now: Just write.  That's all.  No matter how it turns out, regardless of what words come out- JUST WRITE.  So if you're like me, don't plan or plot or even think- just do it.  If you're already writing, just keep writing.  And if you're writing so much that you've got words bleeding out of your ears then you, my friend, are my hero.  Just write.  That's all.

So many insecure writers, so little time...