Distractions

December 2 Writing.

What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it?
(Author: Leo Babauta)

Beyond not writing, you mean?

Since I began to blog, there is very little I do that isn't contributing somehow to my writing. Either I'm keeping an eye out for a little thing - something seemingly insignificant (a phrase, a freudian slip, a run to the gas station) - to talk about, to develop into some kind of little vignette or expand upon into a full on rant or ramble or I'm actually writing about it.

Even when I'm seemingly zoning out on a solitaire game or surfing the web, my brain is still in the process of writing.

Most of the time, words tumble out of me - a torrential downpour. Occasionally, I open my proverbial mouth and it's as though I've just opened a new bottle of ketchup and can't get the flow to start without a bit of coaxing, pounding, tapping, grumbling.

But...

That's the blog.

The other stuff? The other stuff I could write/would write/do write and don't share under any circumstance?

My biggest obstacle is me. And fear...

Of failure.
Of success.
Of rejection.
Of laughter in all the wrong places.

Of opening my mouth only to discover I've got nothing of consequence to say.

So...in 2011, I'll begin to let others read what I've written, take their criticism and their praise, and (hopefully) stop feeling afraid of what I've got.