*Note: Copied over from morning pages journal vol. 11, personal journal vol. 14, dated 2/16/2021

I’m afraid of writing.

This is nothing new, as I’ve written about these feelings in other Morning Pages journals, but what is hopefully new ground is the impetus for this feeling.

Getting set to write can be like building a bike you’re about to ride. You assemble the frame, attach the tires, link up the chain, make sure the steering wheel turns the right way, and attach the seat.

Seat might be the most important part. Can’t forget that. Unless you’re into that sort of thing. Everyone has their own thing.

Anyway, the bike is built, you’re getting ready to ride, then you realize you forgot to remove the wrench from the chain and you flip head over bottom right as you’re about to go.

That’s what I feel.

Just as I’m about to get going, a bit of doubt creeps in my mind. It’s not always an outright negative thought like, “You’re not a good writer,” but it’s something along those lines. Something that halts me because I allow it to, like the wrench in the chain.

“You’re tired.”

“You haven’t thought about this chapter enough.”

“You’re not mentally prepared for this.”

“You’re stomach hurts.”

A piece of dust lands on the microchip and shatters the entire system. The worst part is that it’s not even that big a piece of dust. It’s so small and insignificant that in retrospect it fees bad that you let it affect you at all. Then that carries over to the next day, triggering a chain reaction that proceeds into the next, and the next, and the next.

Then suddenly you haven’t written in a few days, and isn’t that the worst?

If I had more time I would haven added on a little more in the journal form, but since my 15 minute timer went off, I ended it there. So, here’s what else I would say about that chain reaction analogy: Scientifically the only way to halt a chain reaction is to remove the next piece of the chain. This halts the spread of the previous events. Now, I’m no scientist, but that’s as simple as I can explainy goody.

Reverse is. Switch it. Figure out how to remove the negative link then replace it with a positive one and, suddenly, you have something you can work with. That’s half the point of this post. I don’t think I would have posted today’s Morning Pages entry as a blog for people to read, but I needed to write. I needed to hit “Publish” on something to remind myself that I could. This means, tomorrow, if I do it again, *BOOM*

Chain reaction.

Thanks for reading,

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