Monday, September 15, 2008

Why is it so hard this time around?

I was just over at the Yarn Harlot's blog reading about receiving the copy of her new book and about how scary and weird a job being a writer is. Her post made me think about my current situation and writing.

My current situation is procrastination. I am here at this computer reading and writing blogs when I should be at the other computer writing the final project of my master's degree. It's a 25 page paper on a topic having to do with Jewish communal services. In truth, I've been trying to get going on it since July. But I can't. I just can't get going on it. It's not that I have none of it done. I just can't sit down and do any significant part of it at one time. It makes me disappointed in myself.

I was a writer of one kind or another for years. I've written several books; one was almost 400 pages long. You won't find any of then at Amazon because they were the sort of book companies use for internal work. But I've written lots and can sympathize with writing being a scary and weird job. (Sometime I'll tell you about video taping a machine at 3am that threw ice cream bars at people .)

Once upon a time, I'd get a 20 page assignment and have it out in three days. I'd put away my fear for three days and research and write 20 pages in less than a work week. Not now. No. Now I sit here trembling before the words on the screen not able to finish it because I'm afraid to turn it in.

I don't get it. But I'm going back in for another fight.

2 comments:

Knitterary said...

Try reading some Eric Maisal. Deep Writing is a good one. He always gets me unstuck.

Anonymous said...

You are looking at the end of this long process, your degree. You have been at it a very long time. Being done is a very big change and you have had a few of those lately.

Try dividing up the 400 pages into smaller segments. The the whole thing won't be overwhelming.
(Just a thought)