Giving Up Before I Get Going

One thing I've noticed about myself is that lately I've just been giving up on writing before I even get started. It's a lot like cleaning my house.

A lot of writers will tell you how their real-life chores and pursuits often fall by the wayside while they are writing - dishes stack up, garbage cans overflow, litter boxes start to reek. My problem is compounded by my crippling World of Warcraft addiction but writing takes its toll as well. Anyway, this is definitely the case at my house and it's gotten to be problematic.

Looking around the house, I see three or four grocery bags laying around from yesterday's shopping trip. They simply need to be picked up but I haven't done it yet. There are also canned goods setting on the table that have yet to be put away. The strainer is filled with clean dishes that also need to be put away and both sides of the sink are filled with unwashed dishes. One of those dishes is my Crockpot that needs to be cleaned so I can fix a roast before the vegetables I bought for it rot. There is a respectable stack of unread mail. I have numerous unopened boxes of comics yet to be read. The floors haven't been vacuumed in months because my vacuum broke.

Just thinking about all of this tires me out - before I even get up and get going; before I make the first move, I am already sick and tired of cleaning my house. Thus my house stays in a state of general disarray. This has also been my non-approach to writing over the last year or more.

I come up with rich, somewhat original, ideas that I fail to pursue simply because I become overwhelmed with the thought of the process. I am trying to break that habit by forcing myself to write whenever the mood strikes, regardless of the content. That is what this post is about, as much as anything else.

© C Harris Lynn, 2013