100 Things You Should Know About Writing (Part 2)

28) The Excuses We Use

If you're reading this, it's safe to assume that you either are a writer, or you want to be one. Either way, you've probably encountered one of these in your mind at least once: 

I don't have time. 

I don't feel inspired. 

I don't know how to do this, so I'm going to study the craft first. 

I don't even know how to get from one point to the other. 

My ideas aren't any good, so I'm going to take a break until a great idea comes to me. 

I'm just not dedicated. 

Or any variation of any of these. 

On the surface, these kinds of thoughts seem harmless. They are. At first. They're a lot like ants. One of these thoughts every now and then doesn't do a lot of damage. Every writer gets them. They're usually a sign that the writer needs a break. 

The problem, like with ants, is when those thoughts come thick and fast and you don't do anything to control them. Without control, these thoughts paralyze us. They stop us from writing. Oh, you might say, it's just for a day or so. No, trust me. From experience (and from my writing friends' experiences) I can tell you that one day turns into a week, then a month, then half a year, then a year, and then years. 

It creates a hole where doubts, fears, and insecurities (more on this next time) raise their heads, which then makes it even harder for you to get back into a writing groove. 

So yeah... these excuses we use not to write can be incredibly dangerous to us. If only for the fact that it stops us from writing anything. It wastes so much time, because the truth is that those excuses are, more often than not, not even valid but somehow applicable every single day. 

Let that just sink in for a moment. We writers create excuses not to write, and those excuses end up preventing us from writing for much longer than we'd intended. 

Why do we do it? 

Honestly, I don't know. It's highly self-destructive, but almost every seasoned writer I've encountered either admit to the behavior or emphasize the importance of not engaging in it. 

My belief is that the culprit is some combination of self-doubt, insecurities, and fear of failure. In my case, fear of failure is the big one. I know I can write well. I don't have much in the way of insecurities when it comes to my ability to write (due to the way I think of writing). I am, however, prone to this terrible fear that after years of effort, I won't make it as a published writer. 

That's a legitimate fear, yes, but when I indulge this fear for even a moment, those excuses start cropping up. And if I allow that, this thinking pattern becomes debilitating. 

How does one get out of the habit of making excuses? 

One of the most important things you can do is to address the problem at the source. In other words, to make a long-term difference to your writing, you need to resolve the way you're dealing with your fears, doubts, and insecurities. I'll go into those in depth in the next section, since they're monsters of another nature that require special attention. 

The other important thing you need to do at the same time is to learn how to deal with excuses, because controlling those thoughts is half the battle. 

It's simple, really.

Step 1: Once those first thoughts start working into your mind, you need to call them out for being the BS they are.