I keep meaning to write. I think about writing. Most of my day I spend thinking about how I would write a blog post about what’s going on. But then I don’t write. I have all these thoughts floating around, wanting to be out of my head and on the screen. But instead they stay trapped.
Why? Perfectionism. Guaranteed.
I have sat down and pulled up WordPress countless times with the intention of writing. But then I get caught up in trying to decide on the best title and a picture that goes with my intended theme. Or I have a lot of random thoughts that don’t actually go together to fit a theme and I feel like I have to tie it all together somehow.
Someone once told me that in order to be a writer, one must write. Which makes sense, of course. But does thinking about writing count? Probably not. I want to be a writer. I’d even like to be an author, to be honest. But perfectionism holds me back.
Last November I participated in NaNoWriMo. National Novel Writing Month challenges writers to write 50,000 words in the month of November. I decide on October 1, 2020 to attempt for the first time. And I succeeded! I was very dedicated to writing every single day. I reached 50,000 words well before the month was over and continued to write until I reached the end of my story. I spent December going back through my novel to get it ready to allow my kids to read it (it was a middle grade fantasy). It took a lot of begging from them beforehand I finally just gave it over, imperfections and all. They loved it. As did my mother. But they are slightly biased. So I gave it to a writer friend to critique.
And when I got her notes back a month later, I came crashing down from my high. While there were positive comments, all I saw were the hundreds upon hundreds of suggestions for changes. I didn’t even make it to the end of her notes before I became overwhelmed and decide I was not a writer after all. I put my novel away and haven’t touched it since. I gave up.
I didn’t write at all for a long time. I’d had a blog that friends and family knew about, but I was so disappointed in myself that I couldn’t bring myself to write on it. So I didn’t write at all.
But bottling up the words just made things worse. Maybe that’s why my anxiety got so bad. Without writing the thoughts swimming in my head, they festered and grew into big scary dragons of anxiety.
So I started this secret blog. I didn’t tell anyone I knew that it existed. I wanted to feel safe. I needed to write, but not be confronted about my thoughts by my loved ones. I felt shame. I couldn’t fight the dragons in my brain and I couldn’t let anyone I knew personally in on the secret.
In July I wrote every single day. I also started therapy. I believe it was the combination of these two things that helped me tame the dragons at least a little.
But I’m letting perfectionism get in my way again. In July I wrote for me. No one else mattered because I was my only intended audience, even if I did make the site public. But then people started reading, liking, commenting… Which was flattering, of course. Until I started obsessing over views and thinking about what my “followers” wanted to read. That’s where those theme days came from. But forcing my writing into pre-planned themes just didn’t work (except Therapeutic Thursday, simply because that’s the day I have therapy).
But blogging (my current form of journaling) is therapy for me. It gets all of the dragons out in the open where I can see them, instead of lurking in the shadows of my brain where they become much bigger and meaner than reality. And sometimes things are going well and I should celebrate that without wondering how that fits into my “brand.” And still other times I get the itch to write fiction again.
I keep seeing posts from writers about word goals and NaNoWriMo and I’m wondering if I should jump in again. I do not have a concrete idea, but I’d really love to write a middle grade novel that focuses on mental illness. Specifically anxiety. I’m not certain I’ve got enough of an idea to start in 12 days. But NaNo is a great motivator, if last year is any indication. And maybe I can use some of that critique from my last novel to help avoid some of those pitfalls in my next. Or maybe I write for me and my kids and not worry what anyone else thinks. Maybe writing is enough.
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