Just Do It

Quote du Jour:
“You’re a wild woman. You stole panties. You ate pizza.”
–Grace Hart, Miss Congeniality

The sky was a brilliant shade of pink this morning. It was literally breathtaking. When I came through the living room and saw the sunrise, I stopped in my tracks and went “Whoa”. It was so moving, I snatched the camera, opened the front door and stepped outside to take a picture. I didn’t have time to download it from the camera this morning, so will have to post that tomorrow.

We’re going to the Busch race tomorrow at Texas Motor Speedway. My son has announced he wants to be a race car driver when he grows up (talk about striking fear into the heart of a mother…) and this will be his first live race.

While I went to my first NRH reading group at Barnes & Noble last night, Husband took the little boy to ride go carts. When I got home, my son told me he rammed into someone and he was all proud of himself.
:hehe:

I had a good time at the book group last night. Went with several friends from the chapter and we talked about books and writing while drinking our coffees. I fretted over the fact that I’m still stumped on my current novella and confessed my thoughts that if TDTM gets rejected, that’s it. I’m done writing. The response I got was gasps of horror and a big “NO YOU WILL NOT”. Of course I won’t. But for one split second, I thought about just quitting.

And after talking with them, too, I realized something. When I wrote TDTM (in a month and a half), I just had fun. I had no pressure on myself to write. I just did it to see if I could. That’s why the fingers flew. I want that rush every time but as one of my friends pointed out, I won’t have that every time. And she’s right. I need to face up to that fact, get over myself, and just freaking write. You know? Sounds like good advice but when you’re staring at a blank screen with no thoughts coming, it’s tough. Tough to shut off that internal Voice of Doubt that whispers in your ear what a loser you are. How you’ll never make it, never be published, never earn a dime off selling your work, never see your name in print. And then comes the depression because not only are you not writing, you’ve got Writer’s Doubt. And then the words refuse to come and you’re back to staring at that blank screen again.

I guess half the battle is recognizing the weakness. Facing doubt and fear of never having another good (or any!) idea again. Fear that you can’t pick up a pen or open your word processor and just write. Fear of failure. Failure that you can’t write anymore because you’ve blocked yourself so bad you can’t make yourself go on. Can’t jump that hurdle and JUST WRITE.

I know what I have to do. I have to banish those demons, with a flamethrower if necessary, and sit down and JUST FREAKING WRITE. Just write. That’s all I have to do.

Sounds easy, huh?