Debugging the writing process

After spending a day designing and visualizing my ideal writing process, and another day preparing to go crazy, writing, I find myself paralyzed. I had taken all the tabs that I had open on all of my devices and transferred them to my drafting document per the designed process. And now that I'm faced with the task of actually doing something. I'm paralyzed.

Or at least I was. Obviously I've got myself beyond paralysis. Words are appearing on my screen as I speak them. Yay!

But something is missing. There's no affect here. So, it's back to the drawing board.

What's missing is enthusiasm. I'm writing this out of a sense of obligation, not out of a sense of mission or purpose.  How do I create enthusiasm where is there is none?

Worse, it's not just a lack of enthusiasm. It's sadness. Depression. And worse.

I ask myself what's behind those feelings, and I get this answer:  a certainty that I am going to fail. The pattern will repeat itself. Parts of me are full of enthusiasm. They are undaunted. Like the Phoenix, they will always Rise From the Ashes of failures and they know that.

These are parts of me that have the ethos of the scientist. For a scientist, there are no failures. Every experiment, whether it confirms or fails to confirm a hypothesis, advances knowledge. That is what a scientist cares about. And that makes every experiment a success.

But there are other parts of me for which failure is not just a possibility, but a certainty. For them, everything ends in failure. Success may appear along the way. But continue long enough, and the result is inevitable. Failure.

The newest plan for writing may last for a day or a week or a month, but sooner or later I will stop writing. That is history's lesson. And that brings sadness and apathy.

The parts of me that fear that eventuality do not consider the fact that on the route to failure there will be successes. They do not consider that before I stop writing, I will have done some effective writing. They don't take into account that I will have created things that did not previously exist. That's not how they do the math. Their accounting does not consider these things. Only that ultimately I will have failed.

So it is the anticipation of that eventual, inevitable failure that forbids enthusiasm.

Now that I see this, I realize it does not have to be that way. I, or the parts of me that are enthusiastic, hopeful experimenters, artists, and scientists, can speak to the parts of me that are immature, perfectionistic, and certain of ultimate doom. I/we can comfort them, assuage their fears, and keep the system moving forward.

So that is today's modification to the writing process. When I sit down to write I recognize that it is not an individual who sits, but a community of mind. I need to make sure that every internal view point--every member of that community--knows that it has a right to be heard and that if it has fears or concerns that there are others ready to help.

And once I am in what I will call the “ ready state”  it's time to start writing.

So that's today's revision to the writing process.

Preparation for writing. Ready state. Show up. Pay attention to the other parts. And then, when ready, write.

As I have done.