My alarm is going off. It's 4:45am on Saturday morning, and I've got work to do. I grab the clothes I laid out last night off the top of my dresser and begin my walk over to my home office.
Completing my first draft of my Petti Thought of the week should take about an hour. Yesterday, I picked the story that I'm going to write about. Once I finish this first draft, I can do some editing over the next two days to get it ready for Tuesday, when it is time to post it.
Walking into my office, the lights are already on. I automated that little smart home feature a few months back, and a part of me still gets excited each time I see those lights on. I sit down at my desk and open my laptop. No time for brushing my teeth right now; I'll tend to personal hygiene later. Now is the time to dive in and get after it. Mornings are when my brain works best, and I intend to take full advantage of that today. I know where my story starts and ends, I just need to fill in the gaps.
It's 5:10am, and I've got what, to me, is a solid start to the story. I'm writing about an experience from my high school basketball days, and I can't help but smile as I relive the experience.
5:17am. I'm stuck. I know the story; that's not my hangup. My problem is I can't find the words to convey what was going through my head during the story. That's ok, keep pushing. It's only been 5 minutes. I'll get it.
5:35am. I'm in a loop of typing and deleting. I know you shouldn't do that on the first draft, but I'm doing it anyway. I'm so disgusted by the words I've typed I can't bear to leave them on the page. Please let my next stab at this be better.
5:42am. I'm spiraling downwards. All the momentum I started the morning with has been erased like the words on the page I keep deleting. Keep writing.
5:55am. "This sucks. I've just wasted an hour. Okay, I'm going to adjust my goal and not hold myself to writing a story every-other-week. I can't keep wasting time like this. I'll just create the stories at whatever pace works for me and go from there. You've got a lot on your plate. You have a full-time job. You have a family. This whole writing thing is just extra anyway. It's okay if you adjust your goals a bit. Just take it...."
There you are you son of a bitch. I found the quitter—the quitter in me. He's come to the surface to relieve me of my pain and make me feel okay about it. I know this quitter well; Steven Pressfield calls him Resistance. I've lost many battles to Resistance in my life.
But today I spotted him. And fortunately, today, I remember my protocol to defeat this asshole. "Why am I doing this?" "Why did I set this goal in the first place?" Because I suck at it, that's why. I suck at telling stories. I suck at writing. I'm not going to get better at it overnight. What did I expect? To just magically set a goal and reach the finish line of the race in a matter of weeks? No, I'm in this race for the long haul. This is a skill that takes years and decades to develop. It took me three years to learn how to code with any amount of competency. It's taken me three years to barely scratch the surface in Jiu Jitsu. I've spent almost a decade selling, and I still talk too fast. This is no different. I'm 8 months into writing, and less than a month into writing stories. Of course I suck at writing.
I've got a long path of suck before I become anything resembling competence. But, what matters now is that I am on that path. The improvement may not be visible in the next week, month, or even year. But I've been around long enough to have faith that a decade from now it'll make the world of a difference.
I'm keeping my goal. Good try, Resistance. You almost had me today. I'll meet you back here tomorrow.
I missed this one a few weeks back! Great post - resistance has been getting to me too with the writing topic