Writing...And Not Writing

When I first started writing back in the sixth grade -- oh so many, many moons ago! -- I had a hard time keeping things short and simple. I would write pages and pages, whether for history papers or short stories, and my English teachers frequently told me I needed to cut things down a bit. I tried, but I kept thinking, "But I have so much to say!"

But something changed. Now it seems I don't have enough to say. I struggle to get enough words on the page.

I don't understand what happened. Did I grow up, thus knocking my childlike creativity for a loop? Did learning more about writing stymy my creative process? Or did the fear of failure, of people reading my work, swarm into my head and blot out the fun of creating?

Probably all of those things and more. But it really bothers me. I used to be able to sit down and write to my heart's content, but now I feel like it's excruciating even to write a simple blog post.

I think it might be resistance. Somewhere along the line, I got it into my head that writing was hard and it wasn't supposed to be easy. Then my internal editor stepped in, and started demanding I write a certain way, and that further bottled things up.

Steven Pressfield writes a lot about resistance in The War of Art (I own a copy which I think I gave to my mother to read and never got back...) which is where I first heard the term. There's something holding me back, and it's tug is so strong that it's keeping me from doing what I really love. I can almost physically feel the barrier between me and the words - it's a concrete wall, and pushing through it takes an incredible amount of energy.

But really, all I need to do is just write.

Getting to that point, though, is the problem. Why? I honestly don't know. Of course, it could be that I have an incredibly thick skull (recent events have proven this) and it takes awhile for things to sink in. My family is a stubborn bunch comprised of Germans, Italians, and Poles, so it's really no surprise. But writing is my dream. It's my passion. It's what I want to do. Why, then, is it so hard to do something I love?

That is the essential question.

Maybe I need to challenge myself. Maybe I need to make a commitment to write daily for awhile and see if that helps. Maybe that means a blog post every day for a month. And I need to stick to it. No excuses.

I'm not going to let this stop me. Even when it's hard to sit down and let the words come, I will do it. I can do no less.