Catching My Excuses

I’ve been on a bit of a writing hiatus. Okay, more than a bit. I haven’t written anything other than technical docs at work and the occasional small Facebook post for at least six months, and really it’s been a lot longer since I wrote regularly. I’ve been asking myself why, and for a while I felt like writing was so much of a chore and a guilt-trip that I had been mistaken in my young aspirations to write. That I’m not capable of writing anything good, and that the encouragement I got from other people had just been them projecting their ideas on me.

I always thought that I was above this kind of self-doubt, especially about writing. In high school, I decided I was going to be that person that actually followed through with their writing ideas and got something out into the world. In recent years I’ve felt like I’ve let myself down, since I haven’t continued writing much since then. I’ve been confused whether it’s my interests changing, or me falling into that too-easy trap of making excuses.

Slowly I’ve become less hard on myself about it all. I’m in the beginning of my professional career, in the middle of my twenties, and still figuring out what I want out of life. Over time, I’ve found that I’ve missed the overwhelming glee that comes with creating new stories, and I even wrote down a story idea the other day on the bus home from work. But it’s just been sitting on my phone.

This morning, a friend of mine commented on an old blog post I wrote a couple years ago when I was having a hard time handling critique on my writing. She was glad for me that I was getting back into writing, and encouraged me to keep going. When I first read the comment, I found myself making the excuse that it wasn’t relevant anymore, that it was a shame I’d let writing go for so long. But, I caught myself. Why not make it true? Why not get into writing again?

My second excuse, and probably every creative person’s favorite: Do I really have time? I have a busy life, people I want to spend time with, and other hobbies that I don’t want to let go of! I don’t have time to write. Again, I caught myself. I know there are people that fit writing in wherever they can, even if it’s fifteen minutes every other day. Why can’t I do that? I don’t even have kids to take care of. I have a fair amount of spare time that is not dictated by anyone else.

Then my last line of defense: I don’t want to give up any time doing something fun for something less fun. If I get back into writing, I want to be sure that I’ll enjoy it. I am tired of getting back into it, only to be overcome with self-doubt or boredom and then stop again.

And here’s the part of my friend’s comment on my blog post that hit home the most: move on and try writing something else for a while. I had even had this same thought a while back when I wrote that story idea on the bus. I’d realized I didn’t like where the story I was planning was going, and that perhaps if I backtracked, I could fall in love with it again. There is no rule saying that you have to finish the first story idea you think up. In my mind, I went back to that first experience that sparked an idea, of a dim, quiet subway station in Scotland, train approaching with headlight-eyes, breaking like a wailing ghost, and thought of a possibly better–and very different–direction for the story.

Thinking of writing a novel again still daunts me, so my plan is to try out a short story and see where it goes. In the past I’ve been afraid of short stories, thinking if I wanted to write sci-fi or fantasy that it wouldn’t be enough “story” to be interesting. But deep down, I know that’s not true, from the myriad of amazing short stories I’ve read by even my favorite authors. I want to try it.

And finally, I want to remember that I’m doing this for myself. Only for myself. If I focus on the idea of getting my writing out into the world, then I fall in that rabbit hole of asking, what do people want to read? Will they like what I’ve written? Then my inner critic starts hating everything I write, and I don’t even have the chance to write crappy stories in order to get better. I just stop. I don’t want that to happen this time.

So, I’m going to go write a crappy story about a train, and enjoy every bit of it.