I get hung up sometimes, with the writing. Most of the time it’s not writer’s block. I have things to say, it’s just that those things aren’t good enough. They don’t mean something, I can’t weave them into a story that has a moral. They’re just stories; stories without morals, some without endings, random thoughts my inner perfectionist refuses to let me toss into the wind all willy nilly like. I hate her for this. And yet she’s the only authority figure in my life I’ve failed to learn to ignore.
Right now she’s screaming in my head that this post is going nowhere, to quit wasting my time, that no one wants to read such drivel.
Today I’m giving her the finger. She’s spent the better part of the past two weeks ruining every post I’ve started, sabotaging my other work and just generally being a pain in my ass. “That’s too dark and twisty!” she says. “What is the point in writing that?” she jabs. “Oh boy! What trash!” she sneers. “That’s going to piss people off. she taunts.
She is such a bitch.
At BlogHer this year the panelists in the Stoking Creativity writing session gave all sorts of clever ideas for silencing that inner perfectionist — that inner editor, as they called it — visualizing a stop sign, for instance. Over the course of the past two weeks I’ve employed all of them, to no avail. So today I’m just going to write no matter what she says. In one post you’re going to get all the random, imperfect, moral-lacking stories, thoughts and ideas I’ve started writing but haven’t finished. Bear with me.
- I dislike my oldest daughter’s new teacher. Tremendously. – And I’m really disappointed by this. I wanted to like her. With the girls starting classes in a new school this year I really was hoping to get off on the best foot possible. Unfortunately, this woman is rude, self-centered, disorganized, seems very unengaged with her students and the educational process, is resistant to keeping parents informed as to what is going on in the classroom and, while technically sound, her writing style makes me want to stab my eyes out with rusty forks just so I don’t have to read it. Yes, that last bit does matter, thankyouverymuch.
- I adore my youngest daughter’s teacher – She’s upbeat, positive, thorough in communicating with parents, uses a lot of charts (seriously people, charts are underrated! As is, color coding.), stresses personal responsibility, has many opportunities for the kids to make their own decisions and follow through with those decisions. It’s going to be a good school year with her. I can feel it.
- I don’t want to die. Anymore. – Yesterday Shannon posed a question on Facebook that almost spawned an entire post itself, but the inner perfectionist wouldn’t let me, so here it is in a nutshell. She asked; “What did you do religiously in your parents house growing up, but now never do as an adult in your own home?” (I paraphrase here, I’m just trying to get the thoughts out before inner-bitch makes me stop!) And while most people answered with things like “Make the bed.” and “Put milk in a pitcher for breakfast.” My one and only thought was “Hate my life and wish it would end.” Which brought me to two separate but equally important realizations. One, my childhood could have been worse but it really did suck and I’m entitled to owning that. And two, hey! I’m making progress in this life.
- Fall is here. – The temperatures are dropping, but still high, but summer is going, going, gone. The drought we’ve experience this past month (which is nothing compared to the drought some areas have been experiencing for two, three, four months) has expedited the drying of the crops. And the death of everything else. One good wind storm and the corn will be on the ground. The stalks are so thin, brittle looking. The beans didn’t seem to set good pods this year, but they too are turning. Harvest is going to be wonky this year.
- I’m not ready for winter. – The list of things I need to get done before winter is long. And by long I mean long with a capital ‘L’. Wasting time battling my inner perfectionist is not helping me shorten that list any.
But right now, she’s finally quiet. So I’m going to say goodbye and hope tomorrow when I open this window to write again she stays that way. Because I don’t think random bullet points are the way to go, not forever anyway. But I do appreciate you hanging in there with me in the meantime.
{ 2 comments }
