Fighting Through That Feeling

You know. The one that pretty much crushes the instinct to keep going on that book you thought you were dying to get out of your head and onto the page.

The feeling that you can’t do it tonight. Not the whole staring at the screen and trying to come up with words that don’t feel trite. Not tonight. Perhaps not tomorrow night either. You’re just tired, and nervous and wondering why you ever thought you were any good at this in the first place.

You want to crawl into bed with a bag of something terrible for your health and a drink that’s worse and read something by someone who isn’t terminally bad at writing.

But then you remember.

Writing is awesome.

And it’s actually FUN when you get past all the hard work.

Better yet, you can just skip the hard work part and remind yourself it’s actually your version of fun and not hard work at all. Certainly nowhere near as bad as your day job.

And a funny thing happens on the way to the computer.

You suddenly feel like you can manage…something. Three lines maybe. Or even 100 words. Something.

So you sit down and you do it. Quick. Before you really think about it and get depressed again; grind to a halt for yet another day. And guess what?

Before you know it you look up, it’s been 15 minutes and you have a few hundred words.

How do you like them apples? Who knew, right?

But the best part? The best part is you didn’t give up. The best part is you put aside feeling sorry for yourself and remembered that nobody can make this happen for you BUT you. And you really, really want this to happen. You really want to put those words on paper and have someone read them. But it all starts with getting past the fear and the doubt and the tiredness and just reminding yourself that writing is the coolest thing you’ve ever done.

And no one can stop you from doing it. Ever. No one.

So go forth and don’t stop yourself. Fight through that feeling. Because this is what awaits on the other side:

And damn, if he’s impressed, then you got it made, my friend.