because writing is hard, and whining is therapeutic.

Writing is hard, and not-writing makes me annoyed at myself, and the longer I procrastinate, the easier it is for my brain to tell me that what I'm doing is pointless and dumb and that I may as well give up because don't I have better things to do than pretend to be a novelist?

It's not that I'm just automatically self-deprecating (although I can be) or that I actually have no faith in my abilities (because if I'm being honest, part of the problem is that I think I am a good-or-at-least-decent writer, but none of what is coming out seems to be proof of that). It's just that I've never done this before. Not really. I've never made it this far in a first draft, and I've never published anything, and I'm still--still!--convinced, deep down, that no respectable adult-type person actually intentionally spends time writing fantasy novels geared toward slightly-older-than-"YA"-humans. I mean, really, who even does that.

...

Anyway.

I have the phrase "Write now, worry later" written on a piece of paper at eye level if I look up from my computer (although you'd be surprised at how little one actually looks up-and-straight-ahead from at a computer). It's my reminder to myself that first drafts are supposed to be messy and no writer ever actually feels good about what they're doing until well after, if they do at all; just read all those writer quotes you've been collecting. It's to tell me to get out of my head, and that the more I think, the less I do, and the less I do, the more I worry, and then the cycle just continues. [1] So I may as well just shut up already and sit down and write that awkward paragraph or two to get myself to another, more interesting part of... of whatever it is that I'm writing. [2] I always say, afterwords, that I was happy I made myself push through it, even if it was terrible, because I can always go back and revise it later. I mean, like, way later, when I'm actually done with the first draft.

"Done" with the first draft, she says, as though she believes that possibility exists.


So, yeah, this post is a totally shameless appeal for encouragement, and for someone to maybe tell me that Writing YA Novels (Even Fantasy-Fairy-Tale Ones) is a perfectly acceptable thing to want to do with my life.

... also that if I stop whining and end this procrastiblog post, I might actually get something accomplished tonight before Being Old and Having A Grownup Job Or Whatever decide to take over.

Thanks for listening. I'm going, I'm going.

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[1] Never has the concept of "obsessive thought patterns" been more relevant to me than when I am trying to write. Argh.
[2] ...of my book. The book that I am writing. It's going to be a book; that's its intended purpose. Why is that so hard for me to say out loud?! (or type, or whatever)