It took me four hours to get started today. I was dreading it. Yesterday I dutifully finished my prep, but it felt like I was procrastinating and shying away from the hard work. By this morning my stomach was tight with dread, knowing that I had to start a story I wasn’t sure of. Its setting and premise took me out of my comfort zone and I worried that I was being too ambitious.
Doubts like these have stopped me from writing before. But the knowledge of how bad I’d feel if I didn’t tackle the story eventually outweighed my fear, and I finally started at two o’clock today. It was very difficult at first but then everything fell into place and it just wrote itself, I got stuck in places but I just kept plugging away, and then I found I’d written 2000 words. After all the uncertainty of this morning I actually enjoyed myself and came through it with a very decent start.
And tomorrow I’ll probably go through the same dance again, but it’ll be a little easier as I’ve got over the big hump – beginning the bloody thing.
