A Writer's Notebook, Day Three-Hundred-And-Thirty-Five

In some ways the most energy it takes in terms of writing daily is getting myself to write each day.  Now, of course, I am at a point where it is a habit, and where I am bound to that work, but still, there are many times that I will sit in my office doing almost anything else but writing.  Working on emails, or reading, even just mucking about on my phone .  Once I sit down to work, pulling up the blank document and staring at it, I become locked in, but until that point, I am often reticent.

It is strange, really, this feeling, and I know it is not something I alone am prone to.  What is it that makes me feel a desire not to do this work, when it is something I love, and when I know that doing it daily, as I have been, is a rewarding effort, brings meaning into days that might otherwise have been largely wasted.  I don't know why.  I am sure on some level it is a fear that I will not be able to write, but it is also some desire not to have to write.

In part, I think it is that there is an inner guard who keeps me from doing the work if I am not ready to risk something.  I mean to say, it is a bit like a guard at the door who is there to keep me out when I am not dedicated enough to knock that guard on the head and tell him to let me in anyway.  It may not be the most sensible way to consider it, but it is functionally true, in some way.  I think, really, that desire not to write is what turns writing, for me, into something important.  I know when I go to sit down to work, I am not just doing another daily task, but am engaging with something else which requires a different and deeper type of personal energy and effort.

The point is, what I often see as an obstacle is truly an ally, requiring me to prepare myself each day.  It is certainly true that their are days when I don't fight that part of myself, when I am driven by something, inspiration forcing me into action, but those times, I am charged already, so my mind is already primed for the work.  But many days, it is true that I am not in that place, and needing to make the effort, to commit to the work in spite of the fears and other negative thoughts which attempt to derail such pursuits, often feels like my unconscious mind making me prove that I am really ready.

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