This Year

Dear Creative Self,

It's time you and I had a serious talk. It's been awhile since we've done anything together and I know the fault is mine. I've bogged you down with things like word count bars on the sides of the blogs, pressured you with thoughts of "what do I do with the finished project?" and even given an unfinished project the added pressure of a web page.

This morning I found myself looking back over 2011 and what I've done and came up with: not much. I let myself become distracted with shiny objects. But as I stood in the shower, struggling to wake up a thought came to me. You know what it was. You were right there with me.

The thought was: remember how much fun we had writing Migs' story? There was no planning, none of this word count, end product business. We just...wrote. A week...and that's all it was...of constant sitting at the keyboard and crying as the words came out. It was exhausting, physically and emotionally, because he was a tough character but remember that?

Remember how fun that was? How much we liked the entire process? We haven't been liking much lately, have we?

Let's get that feeling back. We both know we can write.

This is what we need to do: forget the bullshit. Forget it all. It just you, me and the keyboard. No more thoughts of what do I do at the end because right now, let's face it, there's no end in any of the starts. I bogged us down with unwanted crap.

No more. The bestie and I decided that 2012 was going to be the Year of the Easy. What's more easy than you, me and the keyboard?

I do so solemnly promise no more word count bars, no more notebooks, no more thoughts of epublishing vs self-publishing. You + Me + Keyboard. And let's find that sense of fun, sense of love again.

We can do this. We both know we're pretty good at this writing gig. So let's do the writing gig. I promise...no more word count bars.

Jenna