How apropos-I’ve been putting off writing! The thing I claim to love most in this world. I’m almost embarrassed to admit that were it not for this prompt, my ass would still be wrapped in my favorite blanket, curled up on the couch continuing to binge The Fall Of The House of Usher, so thanks comrades, for keeping me in check.

Why do I put off writing? The answer is simple: I.Am.Scared. AF!!!! Writing is my passion. When I write, I’m everything I wish I could be in real life. I can be whomever I choose when I write. I’m free…however, while I love writing, and it’s a great hobby-trying to make a living from it is an entirely different thing. When I’m writing with the intention of getting published, it becomes work. I’m not always in the mood to write, but I know I must. I have to put in the work, especially if I intend to be published.

There are times when I’ll read something I wrote and I’ll think my writing is brilliant, or I’ll have this great idea for a story, poem or whatever but then, I will read some writing that is truly brilliant and imposter syndrome kicks in. I talk myself out of it; convince myself it’s a waste of time-that nobody cares what I have to say, or that it’s all been said before, and said better than I can say it.

Why bother?

Then I start to feel sorry for myself which gives me an excuse to throw myself a pity party where I allow myself to curl up under my favorite blanket, lay on the couch and binge true crime documentaries, which now as I come to think of it, have been rather disappointing as they’ve all been ending rather anti-climactically lately.

After having wasted prime writing time, I feel guilty, and so I punish myself and watch more television. And then it’s all downhill from there. The negative self talk takes over: how can I call myself a writer? I tell myself that no writer worth their weight in words would ever prioritize television over writing…I’m not cut out for this. I don’t have what it takes. I’m not a writer. If I were, wouldn’t I be writing all the time? Shouldn’t I be? Why don’t I want to?

Just give up. I whisper to myself on sleepless nights, tossing and turning trying to ignore the idea nagging at me-begging me to get out of bed and jot it down. This could be the best-selling idea! You would think I’d burst out of bed and start banging it out. But no. I lie awake till the wee hours hoping it will leave me alone so I can sleep-I have to be up in about an hour for work. I just want to sleep.

If you were a writer, you’d write! Is what I shout at myself, but I don’t budge. Instead, I bury my face in my pillow and sink my body further into my comfortable, cozy mattress.

But then, every so often, a prompt comes along, and it’s like a swift, hard, pointy-toed kick in the ass that I need to get off my ass and back to the keyboard. I do have something to say-lots of things to say damnit. I need to get to work.

So there you have it, the reason I put off writing. I’m afraid of success and failure. It’s easier to give up, not try and fail, rather than put the work in because if you didn’t even attempt it in the first place, you’ve nothing to lose. Nothing to prove.

Consequently, if there is something inside of you-in my case it’s the story inside of me desperate to be fed, unleashed; released. And as long as I ignore the craving, it gnaws away at me, a little bit each time. It’s a slow, agonizing demise.

A very unpleasant way to live-or to die.

“I love to write. But it has never gotten any easier to do and you can’t expect it to if you keep trying for something better than you can do.”

Ernest Hemingway, On Writing