I feel like I should call every blog post: Writer’s Block.
Because every Monday, I ALWAYS think I have it… again.
It’s like a condition. Like social anxiety. Or fear of public speaking. I feel it coming on like the flu.
I THINK I suffer from writer’s block because I have made writing more important than it is.
I treat it like a job. I treat it like I am being paid to do it. Or like I am being graded on it.
I keep claiming that I am a “recovering perfectionist” (a term I borrowed from another writer), but the truth is that I am still deep in recovery. I am making progress, but clearly the perfectionist shows up regularly whenever I sit down to write. Judging the ideas. Blocking the writing.
EXCEPT emails. No problem with emails. That’s how I started writing in the first place. Just writing weekly emails to myself: A diary of sorts. There was no pressure. It was fun. Just an outlet.
But then I had a full year of emails and I thought maybe I had a book.
But it wasn’t quite a book, so it became this blog. Then I HAD to keep writing. There is a part of me thinks that I should get back to writing a book, but that’s just an excuse to not write the blog.
It’s an ugly spiral.
Then I find myself in the laundry room doing another load of dirty socks and underwear or emptying the dishwasher.
Anything to avoid writing.
You have heard this all before. It’s the same old story. This is what I refer to as the “old tapes.” I had a massage therapist years ago that coined that phrase. She used to say that when we are feeling down we choose to play our “old negative tapes” to torture ourselves.
Now I spend my days coaching people to “burn those tapes” and replace them with new ones. Positive ones.
I think I need to book a coaching session with myself… and hit publish on this post.
Happy Monday!
