APRIL 24, 2008

Two big problems that factor into my ongoing battle with writer's block:

1. I'm anal retentive and feel as though I have to explain everything in regards to what I'm writing about - the entire back history of the situation, every minute detail about what happened, and all the emotion and significance involved.

2. I'm a perfectionist and end up writing and rewriting over and over again, making countless attempts and trying different approaches only to deem them all no good. In the end, I don't get anything finished and feel so frustrated that I give up, thanks to the part of my brain that feels that if I can't do something well, there's no point in doing it at all.

Suffice it to say that being an anal retentive perfectionist produces little, if any, positive results and is much more a one-way ticket to failure and this weird phenomenon is the number one thing that hinders my writing.

How one gets over being an anal retentive perfectionist, I'm not sure, all I know is that I need to figure out how to deal with and tame this part of my brain because it adversely affects many parts of my life and I'm sick of the frustration and failure it produces.

But something tells me that getting over, or at least taming, this may not be as difficult and complicated as I think. It may be as simple as forcing myself to write and posting it regardless of how good it is. That and allowing myself to post short blurbs or silly things, just to get back in the habit of posting would also help.

So maybe what I need to do is chuck fear out the door and allow myself to have fun and experiment. Or, in other words, I need to approach writing the same way I did college. Except with less alcohol and sleeping around.

listening: bell X1 . reading: ---

walk: 30 minutes . weight lost: 17 pounds

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