Writing is hard

Written on Dec 21…

Type, delete, type, delete, type, delete… I’ve been stuck in a loop of second guessing myself when it comes to writing posts.  Most often I don’t get even as far as putting my hands on the keyboard – I have a ‘type-delete, repeat’ merry-go-round in my brain that gets harder to slow down the longer I go without committing to a topic.  I find it much easier to let work and life obligations distract me than to jump in to the moving avalanche of coronavirus and presidential election news, yet as each moment passes, I regret not grabbing the chance to write about the extraordinary events happening around us right now.  And as each lost chance slides by, I find even more excuses to not write, and so merry-go-round keeps spinning…

I tell my kids and my students all the time that if something isn’t working, stop, and try something different, to “regroup and redirect”.   Looks like I need to take my own advice.  I am new to this writing thing, and I think to make this work I’ll need to have to approach it like other things in my life that make me feel good but that I have a hard time sustaining, like eating healthy or exercise.  I need to find a way to make writing part of ‘just what I do each day’, like how I (mostly) don’t eat snacks after 8pm, or how I (mostly) go for a walk at least every other day.  So now I will (mostly) write something every day.  Whether it gets posted or not, I’m not sure, but what is important is that words go onto (virtual) paper, and that I do NOT delete them!

At this point I’m feeling pretty good, because I have two full paragraphs down, and NOT deleted. 

… I wrote this a couple of days ago, and I have written each day since then. I’ll be putting up those posts over the next couple of days. They are not about coronavirus, no yet, but I’m working my way back to that!