singletary

"Don't think, just write."

I enjoy helping teach people how to write, or how to better develop themselves as a writer. That line is one I say to people all the time, especially after hearing something like "I can never think of what to write."

Writing is not something that many people "think" about doing, it is instead something that comes to them. Novelists have to think about how to develop their story, sure, but their initial 'click' to get them started on a piece generally occurs naturally and without any thought about the subject whatsoever.

I do, however, find myself doing exactly what I tell others not to. I linger too much on things that have little to do with the task at hand, especially when it comes to writing. I get stuck on how to better formulate a sentence, or stuck on how to change a certain few words to make the sentence sound more pleasing. I spend so much time on the little things and not enough on the main idea.

This holds true with relationships in my life, as well. I spend so much time pondering the consequence of some action that I took, just to later find out that the other person thought nothing of it. I worry myself over petty arguments or disagreements and think that I have ruined things, or somehow tarnished the opinion that the other holds of me. I find myself spending so much time doing this, that I keep myself from being put into situations where something like that might happen. I distance myself from people and refuse to spend time alone with some. I hold some irrational fear of the ever-present danger of failure, rejection, and misapprehension.

Things need to change in my life. I need to break this fault from myself and make my life better by overcoming all of this. If I continue to live life the way I have been for so long, I fear that I will die regretting having done so, and by then it will be too late.

You can't change things once you're dead.