kami
An iron homily
- Joined
- Nov 28, 2004
- Messages
- 4,265
- Gender
- Male
- HSC
- N/A
There are a lot of us out there asking “Should I still even bother writing?”, heck there are a lot of us stating that they can no longer write and that dropping is the answer instead of the question. Well yes and no. It doesn’t have to be the answer, the situation is salvageable for most of us even if we have only *gasp* 800 words. Basically, you could drop EE2, let your MW go and just go on even though you have put all the effort in. Or alternatively, you could look at your MW and ask “What am I not doing that I need to do now?”. And I’ll admit this is a difficult question since EE2 is the most personal of subjects, but still you need to think through your decisions carefully(albeit quickly) and so many people don’t in the stress that they’re under or they do think on things, but focus only on the possibility of failure.
The biggest reason in my experience of procrastination and stress, has been doubts about myself as a writer, and doubts about myself and my ability to discipline myself – I mean to write all these thousands of words and make it good, that’s a pretty big ask…and I don’t know if I’ll even get there with all the other things on my plate. And while its something of a guess, I’d say that’s how a lot of others are feeling. And these feelings all come down to judgement by yourself and others – judging what you feel, what you think, what you can do and just not being able to accomplish things as a result. This has lead me, and probably a lot of the rest of you as well, into painful sessions in front of a computer screen, *not* getting work done especially when we are at this vital point where it needs to be done. Which is the big killer, it stuffs up EE2, it stuffs up study for other subjects and it stuffs up your self confidence making it even harder to write next time around and even though few of us would expect it, I would bet that we all at times hope that some witty scene, some perfect dialogue will jump from our brain into the computer and “voila!” procrastination solved. But most of the time this *wont* happen, there is no magic formula, we just have to accept that our work will in all probability suck the first time around. The metaphors will be mismatched, the dialogue may make Bold & the Beautiful look intelligent and the characters will be more cutout than cardboard but that’s just how it works.
Now though, the penny drops..."how in the world am I gonna write all those *words* and get it *all* together!" and procrastination and self judgement kicks in again, and really there is only one way to avoid it...don't try to write literature, just write...even if its the crappiest you have ever written and it makes you wanna hurl! It doesn’t matter if the writing comes out like "I crawled in a tree and threw cans at neighbour, neighbour got mad at me, poo poo!" because you can edit it! Just make sure your idea has a fighting chance to live and don’t commit Major Workacide on it out of despondency. And seriously, you would have no idea how easy it is to write crap once you’ve done it – several thousand words could be done easily in a day or so as long as you weren’t too picky. So it can get done, if you want it too, and it can be edited also( something which is easy to do when you have the opinions of people you trust to guide you). So while there is never shame in dropping a subject which is not right for you, don’t give into the fear, the doubt, the judgement, you *can* do it, *I* know you all can. I have seen the people who post on here and you are all capable young people so remember *you* can do it!
PS. Guess what? I think I just wrote nearly 700 words then and there just to make a point.![Wink ;) ;)](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
The biggest reason in my experience of procrastination and stress, has been doubts about myself as a writer, and doubts about myself and my ability to discipline myself – I mean to write all these thousands of words and make it good, that’s a pretty big ask…and I don’t know if I’ll even get there with all the other things on my plate. And while its something of a guess, I’d say that’s how a lot of others are feeling. And these feelings all come down to judgement by yourself and others – judging what you feel, what you think, what you can do and just not being able to accomplish things as a result. This has lead me, and probably a lot of the rest of you as well, into painful sessions in front of a computer screen, *not* getting work done especially when we are at this vital point where it needs to be done. Which is the big killer, it stuffs up EE2, it stuffs up study for other subjects and it stuffs up your self confidence making it even harder to write next time around and even though few of us would expect it, I would bet that we all at times hope that some witty scene, some perfect dialogue will jump from our brain into the computer and “voila!” procrastination solved. But most of the time this *wont* happen, there is no magic formula, we just have to accept that our work will in all probability suck the first time around. The metaphors will be mismatched, the dialogue may make Bold & the Beautiful look intelligent and the characters will be more cutout than cardboard but that’s just how it works.
Now though, the penny drops..."how in the world am I gonna write all those *words* and get it *all* together!" and procrastination and self judgement kicks in again, and really there is only one way to avoid it...don't try to write literature, just write...even if its the crappiest you have ever written and it makes you wanna hurl! It doesn’t matter if the writing comes out like "I crawled in a tree and threw cans at neighbour, neighbour got mad at me, poo poo!" because you can edit it! Just make sure your idea has a fighting chance to live and don’t commit Major Workacide on it out of despondency. And seriously, you would have no idea how easy it is to write crap once you’ve done it – several thousand words could be done easily in a day or so as long as you weren’t too picky. So it can get done, if you want it too, and it can be edited also( something which is easy to do when you have the opinions of people you trust to guide you). So while there is never shame in dropping a subject which is not right for you, don’t give into the fear, the doubt, the judgement, you *can* do it, *I* know you all can. I have seen the people who post on here and you are all capable young people so remember *you* can do it!
PS. Guess what? I think I just wrote nearly 700 words then and there just to make a point.
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