Getting out of our own way... one word at a time...

I like most writers can get stuck in many phases - the idea phase when there is just too much on the planet to sift through to come up with one solid idea or concept to work with. Compound that with the surety that every story has been written and that you have nothing to add and the never ending edit cycle and its a wonder anything ever gets done, put out there to be read at all.

Lost in another period of indecision today I went looking for inspiration and found this picture of Fotosearch. To me it is perfect. I reminds me that I am in the centre of what I am doing and that everything else surrounds me. The past, the present and the future - but they are all outside of me. Yet if I choose I can get up and walk straight ahead in whatever direction I want filled with the security of knowing that no matter what way I chose, it isn't wrong and will lead me to the place I want to go. Sure there may be detours or unplanned changes in direction, but perhaps they are to be cherished and not anguished over. Perhaps each of these moments is time for a seed to have been planted somewhere inside that we can access later when the depths have been explored.

To perhaps know that there is no wrong and no right removes the fear of both failing and of succeeding. It just is - nothing more and nothing less. In my non writing life I call these types of things deal breakers - and when I remove them from any equation I can explore the situation without fear. Then I can be free to just learn and explore with no judgment or retribution as I am usually hardest on myself.

I believe the hardest thing for a writer is to just write, without self editing to death - even for our own purposes and not even for god forbid, any form of public consumption. But why? Do we paint other people with the same brush?

It is because we care so much about what we create that we are afraid, and that is a good thing and is as it should be. But we do need to stop and get out of our own way to get on with this. Just as in the real world it can be done one step at a time... one word at a time... starting now.