I was feeling pretty good this morning about progress I had made last night on a short story. And that prompted me to want to write a post here about momentum, about how once you get the ball rolling it’s easy to keep going, but once you stop, it’s incredibly hard to get moving again. And how, after spending the weekend not writing and initially saying things like, “do I actually need to write if nobody is going to notice?,” I now feel like I’m flowing again and writing is simple!
Only it’s not right now. I got home from work, turned on the news…then watched some Youtube videos…then ate some chocolate and drank a glass of wine…and then realized I haven’t packed yet for my trip to Colorado tomorrow morning. Does it really matter if I just take a few days off and write when I get back on Sunday?
Maybe not. But maybe it actually does, even if nobody else notices. I think it might matter to my subconscious as it is trying to figure out if I am just fooling around here or if I am taking this writing thing seriously. As Steven Pressfield says in his book, The War of Art:
“To the amateur, the game is his avocation. To the pro it’s his vocation. The amateur plays part-time, the professional full-time. The amateur is a weekend warrior. The professional is there seven days a week.”
Basically, if I want to think of myself as a professional, I have to show up every day (or at least most days), even if my brain is done thinking for the night and I don’t have any clue what I could possibly write that people would want to ever read. If this were my actual work, would I just call up my boss and say I’m too tired to come in or I just don’t feel inspired or motivated? If you said yes to this, let me know where you work! I want to apply! But that probably wouldn’t fly at most jobs and it probably shouldn’t fly with my writing either.
So here I am, showing up. It feels good actually. And with each word I type, I can start to feel the flow coming back. Time to pull out my notebook and continue on with the story…