Anytime I come back to a healthy habit after stopping for a while, I have a strong temptation to delay working on the new habit while I get “caught up.”
Take writing as an example. My structure is to use a tool called Scrivener to create my thoughts. I have color coded labels for the thoughts, based on where they are in the writing process. Some are just ideas tossed out to marinate for later writing. Others are slightly more fleshed out ideas that I call “In Progress.” Not quite to a rough draft yet, but definitely more meaty than a basic idea.
Then I have the rough drafts, and occasionally I have a small stockpile of completely edited posts or articles that simply haven’t been published yet. Finally, there are the ones marked as published to my blog. Technically, they are supposed to be stored in a separate folder, but frequently I don’t get around to moving them as soon as I publish them. So, they simply add one more splash of color to my menu of thoughts and ideas.
Those colors are what I see as I open Scrivener for the first time in a while. Colors connected to titles. Titles that I sometimes vaguely remember and other times seem to have no recollection of creating. So, naturally, sifting through those titles sounds like a lot more fun than actually writing. I can organize. Finally get those published articles moved to their own folder. Read through all of the drafts to see if there’s anything I want to edit. Read through all of the ideas to determine whether or not they are still viable.
Don’t get me wrong — editing a rough draft is a great way to get back into writing. And writing prompts, especially prompts I’ve created for myself, can be extraordinarily helpful when I’m out of practice or don’t have current ideas.
The problem is that I frequently don’t actually ever get around to editing or fleshing out a prompt. I just review. Organize. Piddle. Plan.
I don’t write.
Why? Because, if I’m honest with myself, I’m scared. Scared that the ideas will never come again like they used to. Scared that, even if they do come, they won’t be any good. Or even if they’re good ideas, I won’t actually be able to communicate them in a way that makes sense. It will simply be rambling confusion that does no one any good.
Scared that I’m wasting my time believing that writing is a part of me. The evidence is there. I’ve craved writing for as long as I can remember. In fact, I recall a time as a preschooler when I had a pencil and a piece of paper. I had no idea how to form letters, much less words. But I had thoughts. I had seen my mom write things down, and I wanted to do the same. I vividly remember the intense feeling of frustration because, no matter how I tried, I couldn’t make my scribbles look like words. I couldn’t create something that could be read again later.
I physically couldn’t write. But oh, how I wanted to! How I longed to be able to record the things I was thinking, even at the young age of three or four.
Yes, writing is a part of me. But there are so many reasons I still shy away from writing. So many reasons I prefer to waste time reviewing. Evaluating. Organizing. Anything to keep me from writing.
Recently, I restarted this writing habit. On that first day, I didn’t even let myself review prompts. I made myself create a blank page and just start randomly filling it. Stopping, starting, deleting, redirecting. I allowed myself to edit as I went along, but only to the extent that it kept me going. Kept me writing. Kept me filing the page with thoughts, no matter how random or disjointed.
It might be that no one ever reads those thoughts. It might be that, if they do, they won’t follow what I’m trying to say. It’s happened a lot. It will happen again.
But I’m writing. I wrote that day. I’m writing today. Tomorrow I may review my ideas to see if there’s one I can flesh out. The next day, I might edit something and get it to final draft status. But today, I’m just writing.
Here’s to rebuilding the habit.
Not Quite Ordinary 