Eventually every book about writing gets to the point of saying, “Everybody doubts themselves.” Everyone who wants to put words together sometimes wonders why they even bother because there are millions of books and countless writers and how can I possibly write something to compete with everyone who’s already out there blah blah blah blah blah?

Huh. Why DO we put ourselves through this?

Between that last sentence and this one, I did a mini-deep dig into my memories and remembered that when I was a kid, I would draw comics and write stories and songs to entertain myself. I liked comics and TV and movies and top 40 radio, and I made up my own.

It was fun.

It’s that simple: I like reading blogs and novels and science fiction and mysteries, so I make up my own. The psychology of it all, I imagine, is a trifle more advanced than that, but when I dug down toward the why of it all, I found a little kid who had fun in his own little world of comics and top 40 songs that emerged out of his own pencil. How about that?

So the keys I learned/recalled by picking up the book I had forgotten I’d already read — and by grabbing the pen and starting to write again — are that it’s important to just get started, to form a habit of writing every day, and to get back in touch with the kid who did this for no other reason but to have fun.

The doubts that everyone has — “I’m not good enough” and “nobody wants to read my $#!+” — are byproducts of losing that basic focus. I didn’t share a lot of my homemade comics and songs because, once I’d written them, that “what if it’s not good enough” impulse kicked in — but I didn’t stop making those things as long as I was having fun in my little fantasy world.

When you forget to have fun, you lose touch with the point of writing in the first place. You can be writing something dead serious, but if you’re not enjoying the way words weave together and dance with one another, you’ll end up, if not with a dreary dead tome, than at least with a dreary tome on life support.

Recapture the fun, and watch your writing begin to glow again.

I browsed back in my Kindle and found a book called Stop Worrying, Start Writing by Sarah Painter. I was surprised, when I opened it, to find I had closed it last at the 92% mark — meaning I had already read most or all of it. (Update: I later checked my “Books Read” log and found I had read it in October 2020.)

I read to the end and started over, reading the first four chapters until I got to the part where she says that almost every book about productivity — writing or otherwise — eventually gets to the point of telling you to buckle down and just do it — get started.

So here I am practicing my writing. Am I going to go back and convert these handwritten scribblings into a blog post? (Update: Yes, I am. Two posts, in fact.) It’s not as important that I do; the point is to be writing — “writers write” and all that. That’s the point of my daily blogging habit — to ensure that I write something, anything, every day.

“Write anything until you write something.” I’ve had days when I write anything that comes to mind and after two pages I flow into a current that becomes a blog post or a scene for the story/novel. I’ve had days when I have something important to say as soon as I start writing. I’ve had days when I write or draw gibberish until I quit for the day. The thing those days have in common is that I sat down to write.

On the days when I don’t sit down to write, nothing happens. Duh! On the days when I do sit down to write, sometimes nothing happens, but most of the time a little something or a big something happens.

So what is it that keeps me from sitting down to write, some days? It’s when I forget something essential, which I’ll get into on Friday.