~ The Evening Muse #9  ~

If I’m writing then it means I am most certainly fighting. Fighting what or whom? Many opponents, to be sure.

Distraction

First there’s any manner of distractions — time spent with family, time spent on consuming media (television, music, movies, books, comics, etc.), time spent on essentially living a normal life as a social creature who is not a hermit.

Doubt

Then there’s the inevitable, practically omnipotent voices of self-doubt and uncertainty. The doubt that I’m the writer I believe I am and the uncertainty that I can pull of whatever grand vision I’m attempting on that given day.

Discipline

But let’s say I somehow conquer and vanquish the above — then there’s the fight to maintain discipline and attention to the writing task at hand. Avoiding new ideas that are inevitably spawned while working. Avoiding going down the rabbit hole when using the Internet to research this or that subject.

Devotion

Yet it all circles back to what I mentioned above — the one thing I can’t fight is my devotion to my spouse and children. Our family is still virtually young and there’s simply no way I can completely forsake them for such a hermitic, reclusive and selfish activity as writing, especially long form fiction (which is why I semi-joke that I’ll be 50 years old before I actually finish writing a novel).

So, yeah. If I’m writin’, I’m fightin’.