I can’t seem to get started writing. I’m at a total loss as to what the problem is.
I’ve tried setting goals, ignoring goals, getting more sleep, writing early (couldn’t get started!), writing late (couldn’t get started!), tracking my time, journaling before I write, journaling as I write (couldn’t get started!), reading, staring at my book, blocking the internet, blocking distracting sites, journaling in a notebook, journaling on the computer, calling myself unpleasant names, being gentle with myself, and I could go on but what’s the point?
The point is I can’t get started even though part of my brain wants to get started. It’s an inexplicable feeling that makes no rational sense, and when I try to click to my document, it feels like a compulsion forcing me away.
It should not be this damn hard to get yourself to do something you know you need to do, and that, overall, you actually enjoy doing.
What it comes down to, it seems, is that I want to have written the rest of this book but I don’t actually want to write the rest of this book.
This is probably why it’s important not to let yourself think of writing as hard. Because when something becomes hard in your head, whether or not it is in fact, it becomes susceptible to resistance.
Is there any way that accepting this can help me get over my resistance to getting started?
And on a tangent, I think the whole idea of creating a writing habit is stupid. You can’t create a writing habit. Habits are involuntary behaviors. How the fuck is sitting down to write thousands of words an involuntary behavior?
Well, I can see the sitting down part as being involuntary if you repeat it often enough.
(I’m probably being too literal again, or reductionist, but I can’t help it. That’s where my thoughts go when I think writing habit.)
It’s just something that has annoyed me, and maybe it’s because of this habit creep that’s going on in the self-help world.
Or maybe I’m just annoyed because I should be writing fiction and I’m writing this instead. GAHHHH.
The fact is, just sitting down at my computer out of habit, even opening my document, isn’t enough to get me to write. I’ve been doing that for ages. I’m still not writing as often or as much as I want. Not in any universe.
And I’ve been at my computer all day today, and it sure the fuck hasn’t led me to write my book’s ending.