All I have ever wanted to do is write. I gave up my job to be a writer. Why then, is it such a hard thing for me to do. The fear of the blank page is still as strong as it ever was. Nothing that I write reads as good as it did in my mind, before it reached the page. It’s difficult not to compare myself to other, better writers. They have already written everything that needs to be said and much better than I can do it, so what’s the point? These are the thoughts that I have to contend with every time I put pen to paper. It’s because of this that I end up doing so many other things instead of writing.
It reminds me of a meme I saw once in the New Yorker:
“I don’t understand it – no matter how much I drink coffee, play on my phone, refresh my e-mail, look up things online, go to the kitchen for snacks, message my friends, scroll through Twitter, and play with the cats, I still can’t get any writing done.”
Read, read, read … and then write
The writer James Baldwin once said: “Read, read, read, never stop reading. And when you can’t read anymore … write.”
Yeah, I think I may have taken that too literally. I read, and read, and read, and read, and … It hasn’t yet gotten to the stage where I can’t read anymore. As a kid, my mum would have a pry my book from my hands so that I would get ready for school, so desperate was I to read just one more page. As an adult, little has changed. Given the option to read or to write, I will read ever time. Even to the detriment of my own work.
Tidy house, tidy mind
How can I possible start to write before I have cleared my space? My house is always tidy because of my fear of getting caught unawares. But that doesn’t stop me from finding things to do. My cupboards have never been so tidy. Clothes are donated before their time. Do the plants need watering? I’ll put a wash on … no matter that it’s not a full load. I’ll just nip to the shops … yes, I know I went yesterday.
Coffee you say
Whilst I do have set writing days, it doesn’t take much for me to abandon my good intentions. There’s always a valid excuse: it’s her only day off or, I haven’t seen them for ages, but her hamster has died. I tell myself that it will just be a quick coffee or that I’m taking my lunch break, but once I break that flow, I’ve lost a whole day.
Netflix and chill
Do people still say Netflix and chill? And does that mean sex? That’s not what I mean, just, you know, to clarify. I don’t do this anymore but when I first started writing, I would have the TV on in the background. It was something that I was able to do when I worked in my previous job, much akin to the background chatter of my colleagues. As a writer though, all it served to do was distract. It took me longer than it should have to realise that the TV is not conducive to productivity.
As an aside, there was one occasion when I lost a week to watching the whole of the BBC drama The Split. That lead to a deep dive on Nicola Walker who, scandalously, I had never heard of. By the end of my research, I knew where she went to school, the name of her grandparents, and her shoe size. That’s obviously a joke but it did lead to me watching everything that she had ever made.
Doom scrolling
Without a shadow of doubt, I waste most of my time on the internet. I’ll just have a quick look on Instagram leads to me going down a rabbit hole. It’s not great for my self-esteem, comparing myself to all of the successful women I follow, writer’s especially. Yet still I torture myself.
Even worse is if I get started on the news. I hate the news. It is entirely negative on purpose, to keep us scared and in line. I know that the news outlets are biased and serving their own agenda, but sometimes I just can’t stop myself. I buy in to the salacious gossip or the latest drama and before I know it, hours have gone by.
Tactics
One of the reasons that I started to learn Spanish was as a distraction from the distractions. I figured that if I was going to focus my time outside of writing, then it should be into something positive at least. A year down the line, I’m far from fluent but I’m proud of that time well spent.
I’ve deleted social media apps from my phone and while I can still get lost in it, the user experience via the browser makes is far less enjoyable and so I spend less time than I usually would.
Sometimes I have to trick myself into writing. I’ve started using the Pomodoro Technique where you work in 25 minute bursts, separated by short breaks. If I tell myself that I only have to write for 25-minutes, I am less likely to be overwhelmed by the enormity of the blank page.
Initially I thought that writing shouldn’t be so hard, that maybe it isn’t for me, but apparently it’s universal. Reading that other writers suffer the same procrastinations helps.
Anyway, I need to get on. I’ve got to nip to the shops, scrub my kitchen floor and work my way through all nine seasons of the US Office before I can possibly write any more.