{"id":2464,"date":"2012-04-24T11:00:01","date_gmt":"2012-04-24T16:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/?p=2464"},"modified":"2012-04-24T11:00:01","modified_gmt":"2012-04-24T16:00:01","slug":"2464","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/?p=2464","title":{"rendered":"Obstacle or Excuse?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The biggest obstacle that keeps me from writing is the same thing that enables me to write in the first place: my mind.<\/p>\n

My mind never stops. Even when I\u2019m trying to sleep. Especially when I am trying to sleep. I worry and doubt and question and berate constantly. I have an idea, but as soon as I have an idea I have another idea. But then I worry that I should be doing something else. Or I really should be doing something else, so guilt keeps me from writing. Or my mind gets distracted. Shiny! Internet. Work. Friends. Family. Sleep. Eating. Chores. Errands.<\/p>\n

My mind constantly tries to prioritize all of the things going on in my life, and most days, writing ends up at the bottom of the list.<\/p>\n

Some of it\u2019s laziness. I have to focus my energies and thoughts to write. I have to sit still for more than five minutes. I have to channel my thoughts into something coherent.<\/p>\n

Then the what-ifs set in. What if it\u2019s not coherent? What if everyone hates it? Who cares if anyone else hates it, I hate it and that\u2019s all that matters. What if I make it good and try to get it published and nobody likes it? What if I do get published? What then? I refer to this worry as Publishing Paralysis<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sometime the Cafe keeps me from writing. I spend time writing for it and making sure everything runs smoothly that by the time I get caught up, I have lost all ambition to work on any of my own stuff.<\/p>\n

For the last few months, my new partner has been an obstacle. I used to be single with no children or pets. I read almost 100 books last year and wrote two novels. At the end of the year, I met the love of my life. Since then, I’ve wanted to spend all of my free time with him. And he came with a dog and a four-year-old. I love all three of them more than I ever thought possible, and they fill a hole in my life I didn\u2019t even realize was there, but they have taken a lot of time away from the things I used to do, including writing.<\/p>\n

Having a social life, a job, family, obligations \u2013 essentially, all the things that make up life are obstacles.<\/p>\n

But only if you let them be.<\/p>\n

All of these things? I look at them as excuses. My own excuses are my obstacles. My mind loves to try to justify them as legitimate reasons. But the deep guilt I feel when I don\u2019t write makes me realize that they are just lies I tell myself to keep myself from doing what I love.<\/p>\n

Why do I punish myself? I don\u2019t know. I blame the tortured writer mentality. Have you ever met a writer that wasn\u2019t weird or demented in some way?<\/p>\n

Maybe not. Maybe I\u2019m projecting.<\/p>\n

The bigger, more important question should probably be how we overcome those obstacles. Maybe this weekend\u2019s Ephemera will be able to shed some light on that very important question.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The biggest obstacle that keeps me from writing is the same thing that enables me to write in the first place: my mind. My mind never stops. Even when I\u2019m trying to sleep. Especially when I am trying to sleep. I worry and doubt and question and berate constantly. I have an idea, but as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[364,773,1276],"class_list":["post-2464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writers-life","tag-excuses","tag-obstacles","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2464\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.confabulatorcafe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}