Crushing Doubt or Triumph?

Coffee. Check. Book. Check. Intrusive, distracting thoughts. Priceless.

            I made coffee this morning, poured a cup, grabbed a book titled "Empire of the Summer Moon," and intended to read and sip my coffee in my home's early, quiet morning hours. The book is about Comanche Indian Chief Quanah Parker and the history around his leadership of the Comanche Nation. I took an initial sip of my delicious, hot, caffeinated drink. The warmth of my beverage ran down my chest, and I closed my eyes, savoring the morning silence and my "Holler Mountain" from Stumptown Coffee Company. I kept the vertical blinds mostly closed, only allowing a sliver of Pacific Northwest dawn light to seep in. I grabbed my iPhone, snapped a photo for my Instagram, and settled in to read my book in the dim light of my front room.

            As I relaxed on my couch, I pulled the book into my lap and began to think about my day. My thoughts were quick, rapid-fire lightning strikes into my Prefrontal Cortex, "Wait, should I be writing? No, I want to read. Or should I be reviewing my manuscript? I should. It's been 18 months since I touched it. I need to do the dishes. Did I finish folding laundry? My manuscript. I need to finish it."

My peaceful, thoughtful, personal morning was sabotaged by intrusive thoughts, mostly around failure. This has happened since October 2021, when I finished the first and last meeting with my Independent Editor, Linda Ruggeri. That meeting, which gave me confidence and a clear mission to complete the development of my story, was the last time I was genuinely motivated to write. Since then, I've waffled, suffered, heavily sighed, and changed my mind about whether I was ready to finish my manuscript. Every little distraction grows into an excuse to keep my 241 pages and 64,326 words in my drawer, away from my creative self.

I am writing this today because I feel tired of it. I want to get everything done, all around me, all the time. I can't. To finish my story, I must let the itch to do other things constantly remain unscratched.

            I know I'm not alone in my struggle. My fellow artists, successful and thwarted, all deal with the same irritations. Many of them have responsibilities, as I do, but the ones whose work is given a chance to be loved or panned have the discipline to ignore the devil on their shoulder, telling them to "wait" or "you have other things to do" or "you're not worthy." So instead, they flick that little beast into their morning coffee, dig into their mind, and finish. I need to get better at that part of the process.

            Taika Waititi said once, "Sometimes, writing is opening up your laptop, looking at a blank page…for about 8 hours, and then feeling sad, and then closing it. That's still classified as writing." I wish I could say I've been doing that for 18 months since I finished that meeting with Linda. It's another quote from Taika I stumbled on recently that I identified with. He said, "Writing, for me, is a very lonely part of the process…I usually do veer between crushing self-doubt and an overwhelming sense of triumph."

            Yeah, I understand that one. At least, the crushing self-doubt part of the quote.