These are the things that have kept me from writing as much as I should so far this week:

1. hormone headache/fog
2. obsessive reading of Don Quixote so I can finish it (!)
3. sudden worry that I am not educated enough to write anything
4. googling writing programs/workshops/classes
5. reading the comments and testimonials of above and worrying even more that I don't know what I'm doing
6. staring at rain
7. making four hundred cups of tea
8. making lists of things I should write and submit to journals/magazines when I get better at self-discipline and writing
9. worrying about how much I should be posting online and how to find time to create interesting content
10. googling "how important is an author's social media presence or should you just lock yourself in an internet-free room and write the whole novel?"

It didn't occur to me until yesterday that most of what I am doing is self-sabotaging. Most of that stuff felt really important when I was doing it. But no amount of classes and credentials, social media posts, or cups of tea is going to write this novel. I'm fascinated by how often I get in my own way without realizing it. Novels get written by people who sit down and write. So as hard as it is, I'm packing up the worry and settling down. I can worry about all these things again after "The End."

I'll leave you with this gem from the marvelous Seamus Heaney.

"Getting started, keeping going, getting started again – in art and in life, it seems to me this is the essential rhythm...the guarantee of credibility in your lives, credibility to yourselves as well as to others.” ”

Seamus Heaney

xo
tonia