author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

Hey! I made some progress on my story today! It went something like this:

I only managed one micro-session around 6 PM rather than several throughout the day, because avoidance monsters. Of course. Avoidance took the familiar form of bog-standard procrastination. "Oh, just fifteen more minutes... just read one more blog post while I eat my dinner... just use up my turns at Two Dots and then I'll get to it for sure..." It took the equally familiar form of creeping fear and dread, the usual hazy certainty that the story was awful and impossible to fix, all of which would certainly be confirmed the moment I opened the Scrivener file, so why ever open it at all?

Avoidance also took the novel form of dutiful logic. Like, I'd love to do a micro-session before my volunteer reading, but unfortunately the recording has to be uploaded by 2:45 PM, and besides I should take advantage of the time I'm alone in the house and won't have to close the door to the office to do the reading. So clearly it makes more sense to do the reading first. And, oh, I should do a second session after freewriting, but I still have to do my physical therapy, and the weight room closes at ten. And... you know, I'm running out of evening, so if I want to get my other daily writing tasks done, I'd better do them. I can always do another session on the story after I get everything else done, right?

However. I did spend about half an hour on the story. During that half hour, I got a pretty good idea of how the micro-scene I'm working on is going to go. I figured out how it's going to incorporate elements from the scene deleted from the previous draft. And I got most of it written down.

And I left the scene in a loose-ends state to entice me to come back to it tomorrow.

Here's the thing. As long as the avoidance monsters can keep me from looking at the project, they can keep me from challenging the narrative they're pushing on me. It remains a vaguely terrifying, looming thing. It's too scary to even think about. But if I can cut through the fog enough to think about it clearly, I come up with things to say to the avoidance monsters. Things like...

"Hey, even if you're right, what's the worst that can happen if I open up that file?"

"How about we open up that file just so I can see what you're talking about?"

"You know what? I don't believe you. Prove it! ...by opening up that file and showing me how awful you think it is!"

So there's that. There's also this: Wanting to write and not writing is painful. What I finally told myself was, Hey, I have the power to make the hurting stop. All I have to do is open up the story file and get to work.

So I did. And again, it sounds kind of pathetic and neurotic. It's embarrassing, is what it is. But it got me there.

Here's the thing about getting there: Now that I have indeed opened the file and worked on it, the story isn't so much a big looming, terrifying thing as it is a puzzle. It is a puzzle I have begun trying to solve. And once I start trying to solve it, I don't want to give up. I'm eager to get back to it.

So tomorrow I'll get back to it. That simple.

...I hope you have enjoyed this tour of my warped little brain. Aren't you glad you don't live in it?