Breaking Mental Roadblocks

Last month I started a new short story.  I went down to my office, glass of wine in hand, (because what great storytellers ever managed to create without the assistance of alcohol?) prepared to write about who knows what, and the whole idea just kind of developed itself in a matter of minutes.  I was so thrilled because this seldom ever happens to me and I pumped out close to eight pages before deciding to call it a night.  Like I said, this was last month.

The story has been living in my mind ever since, and each day when I get home I remind myself that it's waiting for me down on my computer, but because I am a master procrastinator I manage to find other activities to distract me in the waning hours of my day.  I think it's typical for most of us to do things like this.  To make excuses for ourselves and ultimately convince ourselves that we're too busy to partake in certain activities that make us happy and might not ultimately be seen as being "productive."

I think that trying to place writing into either the category of "productive" or "waste of time" is kind of difficult.  Forced writing, such as the papers one has to write for class, are unavoidable and definitely a necessity.  But for a person like me who doesn't HAVE to write in order to pass a class or because someone is paying me to do so, it's not so easy to classify the type of writing I'm doing.  Sure, it's for pleasure and because one day I'm ultimately hoping someone likes what I write enough to want to pay me for it.....but for many people that day never comes and it very well could never happen to me.  I don't feel writing is a waste of time, but I do find that I put it smack dab at the bottom of my priorities list.

I'm big on lists.  To-do lists, shopping lists, movie lists, I could take anything and make a list out of it and be completely satisfied.  I even keep lists in my head of things that I need to take care of before I can move onto another activity.  For example, I might tell myself that I have to wash dishes before I sit down and watch a movie, stuff like that.  So before I let myself sit down at my desk to focus on writing I create this ridiculous laundry list of tasks I have to get through before I can do that.  It's ridiculous, really, because there is always going to be something to take care of, and all I am really doing is creating roadblocks to keep me from my computer and my story. 

I guess one could look at this as a form of self sabatoge.  And I don't even think it has to do with intentional sabatoge, but more in the way my mind works.  Most of us tend to think that work should come before play, so I guess it becomes a matter of forcing myself to reverse the order of the two.  I don't like to be a person who makes excuses for why something can't be done, and it discourages me that I've been allowing myself to fall into that trap.  Sometimes I think it's harder for us to maneuver around the obstacles we set for ourselves, rather than the ones put up by other people.