Wednesday, October 10, 2007

it's only words

Officially, I don't start this 70 Days of Sweat thing until Monday, but I want to generate some new pages before Monday, for workshop, so I'm going to jump the gun. Look over there, to the right, and you'll see the nifty widget from zokutou. Such a terrific idea, concretizing the process so it speaks to those of us who require external motivation to slog forward.

I have to admit, I don't like to think of myself in those terms: one who needs to join a group in order to fulfill writing goals. My self-concept is firmly GDI. "I'll do it myself if it kills me."

The other day, at the full-service-everything-from-pork-and-beans-to-pvc-pipe grocery store, Fred Meyer, I had an epiphany. I was looking for a particular type of printer cartridge, and I wasn't finding it. I looked for 15 minutes, gazing over the same pegs, shelves, aisle. I realized that I didn't want to ask a sales associate if they carried that type of cartridge because the disappointment seemed less all-encompassing (and less absolute) if I came up empty without being told by an authority that the product was not to be found.

The epiphany was about how my epistemology is rooted in "anything is possible" and depends upon it not being confirmed otherwise. Ergo: I am a rock, I am an island.

It's quite a paradigm shift for me to acknowledge that I'm secretly needy and, worse, that I resent and fear those who are publicly needy. To throw myself into the ring with other writers you have failed on their own confirms that, on my own, I'm a loser. I know this is harsh, and might result in immediate hate mail, but I stand by my self-diagnosis. And, I realize that I need to get over it--the myth, the resentment, the 'tude. I need to strap on my nail bag and write--and encourage others to do the same.

1 comment:

  1. Welcome to the challenge! Congrats for signing up and good luck with getting started.

    ReplyDelete

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