My skin feels weird.

I’ve been rocking a pretty annoying bit of Cold™ brand sick this week.  It started modestly enough with a bit of a throat tickle and a cough. And it quite possibly would have stayed as such, but I’m pretty sure I rage exacerbated the ever loving hell out of it by sleeping very little, and working at this computer for 12-15 hours a stretch these past few days on my first professional voice work related project.

Over 80 pages of material… didn’t seem like it’d be such a huge undertaking at the beginning. But then it swallowed my week whole… But I digress… on to playing catch up with #reverb10 prompts.

December 2 - Writing.
What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it?
(Author: Leo Babauta)

Not quite sure how to answer this in a way that doesn’t go with my off the cuff snark response of “breathe.”  So I’ll stick to that,  as doing so is what enables me to exist, and my brain to have crazies. Notably in the form of that beloved, asshole inner critic lots carry around with them.

While I do enjoy writing, holy crap do I ever get in my own way. Particularly if I’m on a computer with internet access. If I’m not ADD afflicted and checking multiple other streams of information unrelated to the task at hand (but oh-so-interesting), I’m already engaged in editing the entire post while it’s still being written. Re-reading and reprocessing everything before this word, as the next stiltedly flows out. Maniacally fearful of misspelling (though most software is tracking it for me on the fly, whenever I see those red squiggles pop it’s like it triggers a mental ruler strike to my hands), improper context, and those times when I do just let go and happen to accidentally do something like double double up on a word by accident, or use the same core word several times in the same phrasing.

That last sentence? While even actively attempting to set it up as a “cute” example of my brain crazies, I saw the squigglies 5 times, and tabbed out of this WP page to use the “define: [type yo word here]” function in google search at least 3 times.

I get in my own way.  As if it were my sole purpose for being.

Some days are certainly better than others, and being well rested absolutely helps.  While I have installed a myriad of tools, apps, and plugins that are designed to help me focus on writing by being a gate between me and anything else on the internet, as well as converting my entire screen to a Doogie Howser, M.D. style word processor, it still has yet to take. I’m sure it’d get better over time through consistency. “Just showing up” as it were. But I don’t currently have writing within the top 5 list of my focused priorities currently. Though I probably should, as it is rather therapeutic, and clearly that’s something I could benefit from.

I have journaled on and off for almost 20 years. I usually fill up the first 10 – 15 pages, and then break the habit, and the rest of the book is blank. I have at least 15-20 comp books, fancy journals, and Five Star First Gear College Rule EZ Tear notebooks in this very condition in a storage bin.

My current fave, and the one I’m doing my best to be more actively on top of, is an awesome leather bound journal that Tara gave me as a gift last year, the back binding page inscribed with some of the sweetest and most loving words that I’ll spare you from the syrupiness of. (Just make a mental note that in my small, crazy world, she’s the bee’s knees.)

It was my intention this evening, after being at my iMac from 6 a.m. – 8:45 p.m. sweetening and bouncing out nearly 1,000 different mp3s of my own voice, to stay off the computer for the rest of the night and catch up on my prompts in this journal.  As I was flipping through, I found something I wrote last year around this time, the catalyst of which I can’t recall. But it was clear indication that even disconnected from distraction, were words can flow more freely, and I don’t worry about the red squiggles, I have the inclination to get in my own way.

So I’m back at the computer, because I felt impulse to scan this short, self indulgent entry and share it. Because I found it kind of funny in a “where ever you go, there you are” kind of way.

It’s been an excellent year of progress since writing those words, fo’ sho. But same as it ever was, and hopefully will be… I’m a guy in progress. Always striving for the “best version” of me.