And So I Went and Got a Mountain Dew and Stayed Up Through the Night

[melissawyatt]

Every now and then, young writers contact me for advice on writing and publishing and/or to interview me for a school assignment. In these cases, I try very hard not to terrify them. Recently, one of these young writers asked me a question that resulted in me ranting a bit. I hope I didn't terrify her, but it was an important rant on a subject I

Comments

[idaho_laurie]

I think I need to pin this to my forehead...or my behind. Rave on, Melissa!

[melissawyatt]

That is dangerous encouragement! When I get ranty, scary things can happen!

[anonymous]

Nobody rants it better, Melissa! Now, I really must get off FB and WRITE! From Clara Gillow Clark who doesn't have live journal figured out.

[melissawyatt]

Thank you, Clara! (Come on in! LJ isn't too tricky to figure out. You just have to set comments for members otherwise, you get swamped with spam. What I like about LJ is there's a really warm, wonderful kidlit community here.)

[cynthialord]

I love this.

[melissawyatt]

Thank you, Cindy!

[kimberleylittle]

I *love* this. I love you, Melissa. Nobody says it better. We ALL have a little bit of "we love having writtEN* in us. Because it is SO DANG HARD!!!!!!!! Okay, I admit it, sometimes it's fun, but the STARTING every day is brutal. Brutal! Even if I'm in the middle of a lovely first draft, getting over the daily inertia is the worst part for me. I procrastinate it every single day. You'd think I'd learn after all these years, but nooooooooooo . . . my psyche is just mean that way.

[melissawyatt]

I was just talking to a friend at work who is embarking on writing her first book and we talked about how often the hardest thing is simply opening the file. There are so many days where if you can just get that file open, that's the biggest hurdle.

I also fall into the trap of thinking I need to be inspired to write and if I don't feel inspired, well, why bother? So I often have to talk myself out of that, too. You can make yourself feel inspired. And even if you can't, you can still write anyway.

[quiller77]

Opening the file. That's the ticket (and the thing I also struggle with). It's so easy to think of a thousand other things to do rather than open that dang file, up to and including reading that immense backlog of blog posts I've fallen behind in reading. :-)

[melissawyatt]

It's amazing how hard that one little click can be. Because you are shifting a load of doubt and fear and all kinds of other wonderful psychological stuff. (She says when she hasn't been able to shift anything in months.)

Cynsational News & Giveaways

[livejournal]

User cynleitichsmith referenced to your post from Cynsational News & Giveaways saying: [...] o; as military and political leaders." Procrastination Means You Won't Get Things Done [...]