Long time, no write BLOG POST. Why, I ask?
I’m a writer. I have hundreds of songwriting credits in film and television and I have written a book about songwriting and my memoir pieces have been published in literary journals and still, I wonder if a Stephen King villain is around the corner waiting to pounce on me if I type the wrong word, sentence or punctuation mark.
I use my imagination more frequently to conjure up reasons NOT to write, than to actually write.
WHY?
Do you know why YOU procrastinate when it comes to putting down your own words or doing those things you’ve been meaning to do but haven’t?
I have a lot of excuses. I need to meditate first. Get the cushion out, now! Oh, oh, if I don’t get to the gym before 2 pm, the pool will be closed, gotta go, now! I didn’t make fresh celery/kale/ginger/cucumber juice and the stuff is all going bad in the fridge – do it, now!
Yet…I say my writing is a priority and the slots on my calendar are supposedly non-negotiable, time-sensitive events.
So why am I at my desk now, at 10 AM (woke up at 6 and was supposed to have put in 2 hours of writing by now) wondering if NOW is the time to go to the gym, make juice or respond to yesterday’s emails? I’ve already had my breakfast WITH veggies, and swum miles across the internet. What I haven’t done is keep my promise to myself. Why?
There’s such a simple answer to my question.
I’m afraid my writing will suck.
I’ll make this brief. (Shakespeare would approve: “T’is better, sir, to be brief than tedious”, Richard III Act. 1, Scene 4)
If my writing isn’t good, (who’s judging when I’m just click-clacking at the keyboard anyway???) does that make me a failure? A freak? A criminal? Unloveable?
What do YOU think?
I don’t think so. But I do know that if I consider the quality of my writing to be the measure of my worth, I’m in trouble. If my fear of writing badly and being judged for my writing is forefront in my consciousness when I am writing, the enterprise is SURELY doomed.
Which is why I will push aside my excuses and just peck away RIGHT NOW, a few hours after I said I would. Because doing anything I like to do imperfectly is better than not doing it at all.
THERE. Brief and hopefully not too tedious. My first Songwriters Playground post in 3 and a half years. Bravo Babs. Now off I go to write another song for my musical. More about that later!