I am the world’s best writer. Did I not mention that in my first post? Probably should’ve led with that. Look around you, and see my mighty works! What’s that? You don’t see them? Not even in the bookcase in the next room? How about your local bookstore? They don’t carry my stuff, huh? No big deal, I’ll just take a picture of all I’ve written, and post it here. Just give me oooone second. Oh wait! That’s right! I hardly ever write anything. I am the world’s best writer—until it’s time to write.
The ideas I have? Man, you’d love ‘em! And the work regimen I’ve drawn up for myself? Please, it’s something to live by. Too bad my ideas never get much further than the inside of my head. The biggest problem with the plans of mice and men, bigger even than their penchant to go awry, is the failure of mice and men to act on those plans.
Whenever I sit down to write, I get smacked in the face—hard—by something. This morning, when I first went to write this post, it was fatigue. Just as I opened up the computer, I felt a wave of exhaustion come over me. Right now, later that same day? I felt the pangs of hunger just as I went to dig my computer out of my bag. Some days it’s a one/two punch. I was going to power through the fatigue this morning, but then I was struck by an overwhelming urge to check my phone—just for a quick second! What happened next wasn’t my fault. How could I have known that the internet would be alive with talk of Spider-Man joining the cinematic Marvel Universe? (The first draft of this post is being written on February 10th.) That tidbit got me hooked, and down the rabbit hole I went. (Full Disclaimer: I would’ve kept looking until I found something to drag me down).
One theory that’s out there on developing any skill, not just writing, is that you need to put in your 10,000 hours of practice. I wonder how many of those hours are meant to be spent ferreting out your own excuses, and learning your own tricks. Does that count as part of the 10,000? Because if not, I am seriously behind.
So far, I’ve learned more about the ways in which I don’t write than the ways in which I do. I can see almost all of my excuses coming. I just haven’t figured out how to get out of the damn way. It’s like those people you always see in disaster movies, the ones who just stare up at the rubble as it falls down to crush them. The times where I listen to my excuses, where I close my computer or take out my phone, I feel like I’m yelling at myself. “MOVE! It’s coming for you, you idiot! Get out of the damn way!” Yet I’m standing there waiting for the rubble more often than I’m not.
Today, the score is 1 – 1, Bewildered Bystander vs. Rumbling Rubble, at least where writing this blog is concerned.
Next game, I’m going for a shutout.