I love to swim but nearly every time I enter a pool, I have to give myself a countdown. There is something in me that resists - strongly - that initial shock from warm, dry world to cool wetness.
This fall, I have had the luxury of time to spend on my fourth novel. It's going well - within a month, I'm 20,200 words in, and I have a very good idea where it's all going to go, and I'm delighted to have the opportunity to write this tale. My goal is to be done a good draft by April, but I suspect it could happen sooner.
And yet.
Every day is the same story. It's the pool story. The countdown. The resistance. The small load of laundry that could be done. The phone call. The paid work project. Today, this blog entry. Some days I can't force myself to engage with the story until mid-afternoon. I've never been a procrastinator before, but neither have I had open time just to write a novel. When I do force myself to get wet, the words come fast and furious. I write perhaps as much as I might have if I simply shut off the Internet in the morning and opened the document or the notebook and set to work.
I'm not exactly sure which process would be better. And what I'm doing is working, I suppose.
I just thought I would note the oddity of the process.
I too have perhaps not as significant, but definitely similar areas in my life that I shrink from doing. Thank you for naming it and helping me find a point of grace- perhaps it's not so bad in the end??
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