The biggest obstacle for me to start writing is myself. My brain tells me not to do it, or if I have an idea I will immediatly think of several reasons why it is no good. I'm not sure exactly where this negative conditioning came from, but when I recognise it I can ignore it.
The other day is a case in point, I was trying to write a specific scene and I had several options for how to write it. I was thinking them through and I found myself saying "no, those ideas are all lame, think of something better" which at first appears to be a positive creative process (pushing myself to improvement) but is actually a barrier, because if I have no faith in what I plan to write I won't write it.
So what I did was recognise what I was doing, decide to stop putting up barriers for no reason, then I sat down and wrote out one option for the scene, on the premise that if it really was lame I could always rewrite it. It was a bit of a hard slog to write but I got it out and when I read it I was relatively happy with it.
Here ends my point: the main thing stopping myself (and possibly everyone else?) from writing, or doing whatever, is themselves. My mind is filled with doubts, but I can learn to ignore them and get the job done all the same.
Posted by jenni at January 13, 2007 09:09 AM