Picture this: A quiet, bright lit computer and a shiny keyboard waiting for your fingers to tap on them. You are ready to start writing. The second the melody from your cell phone starts singing, you have already jumped out your seat, dashed from the computer, and onto a comfortable couch. You tell the person on the other end of the phone it was OK for them to interrupt your writing time. No, it is not OK. Distractions are the worse when you need to complete a job. Writers are never to be bored because there is a major task at hand. You need to write an hour a day or a page, whichever suites you best. Can it be done? Absolutely! Will it be hard? Definitely. What is a writer to do?
This completed work is not going to write itself. One of two things will happen. The first is everything will stay in your head. The other possibility is you writing it on loose-leaf paper or drafting it onto Microsoft Word. Ask yourself, how bad do I want it? No one is going to want it badly for you if you don’t. When the ideas stay in your head, you walk around wishing you took the time out of your busy life to write. You come across someone else’s work; you might insult it or wish you completed yours. Either way it still stays in your head. You can come up with as many excuses to justify why you haven’t written but it doesn’t equal to you wanting it badly enough. Excuses are just that, excuses. Get it done.
I think sometimes as writers we over analyze, we doubt and we are afraid of success. When we over analyze, we think too much. Take that energy that is spent being critical of yourselves and more forward. There is no need to doubt yourself, don’t you know there are plenty of others that will do it for you…for FREE! We are our worst critics but it doesn’t mean we have to fear our true talents. If you are going to succeed at anything in this world, don’t you owe it to yourself to become successful at what you love?
Don’t worry so much about who is emailing you; that email will still be there 60 minutes later. It’s OK to miss that phone call from your buddy, mobile carriers created this thing called voice mail so people can leave you a message if they miss you. Its 2008 people, missing your favorite episode doesn’t hold up in this court, get TiVo or get left behind. (You can also set your VCR’s to those who are not hip to TiVo yet:) Just give that time to yourself because at the end of the day, week, year or life, excuses will not measure up to what is left in your head. “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”- Maya Angelou
Till Next Time Writers,
-Mackleen
