Catching My Excuses

I’ve been on a bit of a writing hiatus. Okay, more than a bit. I haven’t written anything other than technical docs at work and the occasional small Facebook post for at least six months, and really it’s been a lot longer since I wrote regularly. I’ve been asking myself why, and for a while I felt like writing was so much of a chore and a guilt-trip that I had been mistaken in my young aspirations to write. That I’m not capable of writing anything good, and that the encouragement I got from other people had just been them projecting their ideas on me.

I always thought that I was above this kind of self-doubt, especially about writing. In high school, I decided I was going to be that person that actually followed through with their writing ideas and got something out into the world. In recent years I’ve felt like I’ve let myself down, since I haven’t continued writing much since then. I’ve been confused whether it’s my interests changing, or me falling into that too-easy trap of making excuses.

Slowly I’ve become less hard on myself about it all. I’m in the beginning of my professional career, in the middle of my twenties, and still figuring out what I want out of life. Over time, I’ve found that I’ve missed the overwhelming glee that comes with creating new stories, and I even wrote down a story idea the other day on the bus home from work. But it’s just been sitting on my phone.

This morning, a friend of mine commented on an old blog post I wrote a couple years ago when I was having a hard time handling critique on my writing. She was glad for me that I was getting back into writing, and encouraged me to keep going. When I first read the comment, I found myself making the excuse that it wasn’t relevant anymore, that it was a shame I’d let writing go for so long. But, I caught myself. Why not make it true? Why not get into writing again?

My second excuse, and probably every creative person’s favorite: Do I really have time? I have a busy life, people I want to spend time with, and other hobbies that I don’t want to let go of! I don’t have time to write. Again, I caught myself. I know there are people that fit writing in wherever they can, even if it’s fifteen minutes every other day. Why can’t I do that? I don’t even have kids to take care of. I have a fair amount of spare time that is not dictated by anyone else.

Then my last line of defense: I don’t want to give up any time doing something fun for something less fun. If I get back into writing, I want to be sure that I’ll enjoy it. I am tired of getting back into it, only to be overcome with self-doubt or boredom and then stop again.

And here’s the part of my friend’s comment on my blog post that hit home the most: move on and try writing something else for a while. I had even had this same thought a while back when I wrote that story idea on the bus. I’d realized I didn’t like where the story I was planning was going, and that perhaps if I backtracked, I could fall in love with it again. There is no rule saying that you have to finish the first story idea you think up. In my mind, I went back to that first experience that sparked an idea, of a dim, quiet subway station in Scotland, train approaching with headlight-eyes, breaking like a wailing ghost, and thought of a possibly better–and very different–direction for the story.

Thinking of writing a novel again still daunts me, so my plan is to try out a short story and see where it goes. In the past I’ve been afraid of short stories, thinking if I wanted to write sci-fi or fantasy that it wouldn’t be enough “story” to be interesting. But deep down, I know that’s not true, from the myriad of amazing short stories I’ve read by even my favorite authors. I want to try it.

And finally, I want to remember that I’m doing this for myself. Only for myself. If I focus on the idea of getting my writing out into the world, then I fall in that rabbit hole of asking, what do people want to read? Will they like what I’ve written? Then my inner critic starts hating everything I write, and I don’t even have the chance to write crappy stories in order to get better. I just stop. I don’t want that to happen this time.

So, I’m going to go write a crappy story about a train, and enjoy every bit of it.

My Struggle with Work-Life Balance

I’ve been learning a lot over the past year about what it means to work as a software engineer. What “work-life balance” means to me–and how difficult it is to get there–is my current biggest challenge. I have a great job and a boyfriend that I love, but what does that leave time for? My introverted nature means that most of my social life involves spending time with my boyfriend and my cat, and the occasional excursion to visit my friends, most of whom live at least a little far away.

Spending time with these people means I get to do some of my hobbies: playing video games and tabletop games, watching movies and tv shows, and going hiking and biking. This does not leave me a lot of time for those hobbies I need to do on my own: reading and writing. The main time I have for reading is on my lunch break, and hopefully I will get more time after I switch back to taking the bus to work later this summer. I will occasionally go to a cafe with my boyfriend on one of our “coffee shop dates” where we work on our own personal projects, and this gives me time to write.

Sometimes though, even though I make it all the way to the coffee shop, all I feel like doing is reading. I did this last weekend and started reading the Naruto manga from the beginning, cause I hadn’t read manga in a while (mangapanda.com is awesome, by the way). I thoroughly enjoyed my day and don’t regret it. In the back of my mind though, I feel like I am neglecting my writing–but whether this is my inner critic talking or whether I do actually want to write more often, I don’t know. Lately it’s felt like a chore whenever I don’t have a bit of inspiration or when I feel like doing something else, and this makes me feel like a failure. What kind of writer am I if I can’t push myself through the imaginary “writer’s block”?

My job tires me out. When I get home, all I want to do is chill out, but there’s laundry and dishes and a cat to take care of. When I have housework-free time, it’s most often taken up by things I feel like doing in the moment, which is not often writing. Today is one of those rare days when I feel like it, and it’s not a chore.

As I venture into the adult world, I feel like my priorities are shifting. It’s really hard to let go of what feels like my childhood fantasy of becoming some great, famous writer. I know I don’t have the bandwidth right now to work on that dream to the level I would need to accomplish it. Maybe someday I will be able to. Bit by bit, I know I will keep writing, because I keep coming back to it as my favorite medium for self-expression. Having big dreams is what keeps me going, and I know that deep down I would be devastated if I ever completely gave up those dreams.

Given all of this, I need to find a way to be okay with the minimal time I have available.