I’ve blogged a lot over the past few months about how hard it is for me personally to write with other stuff going on. This is not limited to things happening around me that I want to check in on (like video games and kids) but also emotional matters—trouble in relationship land, health issues, writing space itself. All of this finds me at the Seattle Public Library’s Downtown branch on a Thursday trying to piece together an extraordinarily tough writing assignment. The work is hard because I am close to it and want to do it ‘right’ vs. do it the required way. It is tough because I bury myself in minutiae, which gets me wanting to escape, which leads to me playing even more video games and working less.
Which leads me back to the library…
…and the steady hum of a yellow-sided escalator climbing endlessly to a part of the library I’ve never been before. I could go. I could also write. Writing is obviously best, but as this blog indicates, procrastination and stalling are what I am most inclined to do.
So, let us spend these last five minutes talking about why we stall when we should write. The answer is a spectrum that basically comes down to We are Bored – We are Scared. It is rarely entirely one. I personally float more towards the center, with an emphasis on focusing on the why instead of focusing on the how to step off the spectrum.
How do we get off the spectrum? Honestly, the work that bores you is about having to do the tough parts or having to do work you don’t like in order to do work you do. The work that scares you is about missing deadlines or digging into thoughts and feelings you are not comfortable with sharing or perhaps even accessing.
In all of these cases the answer is: Just Do It. Find a corner where you can be away from your distractions and get the work done. There really is no other way. Which leads me back to the library…
…and away from this blog.