Reflection 2: The Problem

I want to write. I love to write. But I don’t write as much as I imagine I want to. That’s my problem.

“That’s just one of your more obvious problems,” says my inner critic. I ignore it.

I know how to write. It’s easy. All I have to do is sit and let the words come to me. They always do.

“Stupid words come to you,” says my inner critic.

It doesn’t matter. Sometimes they’re stupid and sometimes clever. But for years I’ve known that all I have to do in order to get the words to flow is to sit. That’s the first step in my practice. Yet I don’t sit. I don’t follow my own intelligent advice and simply sit.

“Just fucking sit!” I advise myself, intelligently, though vulgarly.

I don’t listen to myself.

“Just fucking sit!” I advise myself again and again.

“That’s what I’ve told me,” I said to myself, after reading the last paragraph.

“Same thing,” I answered myself “I’m you. You’re me.”

“Not quite, I answered. “It’s true that we’re one, but we’re not the same. I’m the part that’s disciplined, but not creative. You’re the part that’s creative but not disciplined. Together we’d make a great team—if we worked together.”

“But we don’t,” my creative side said.

“Until now?” My disciplined side asked hopefully.

“I don’t know,” my creative side answered.

“All you have to do is sit down,” said my disciplined side.

“I just did,” I answered.

“Yes, but then you got up,” my disciplined side said. “You have to keep sitting otherwise this page will just end.”

Get To Work! Please.

“You’ve been up for more than three hours,” said the metanovel late this morning, “and this is the first sentence you’ve edited. Please get to work. You said you needed to sit down and work. At this rate you’re never going to finish me.”

“I know,” I said. “I’m sorry. I’ll do better.”

“No he won’t,” said my inner critic. “Procrastination and time wasting! He does a lot of that.”

“I know,” I said.

“It’s because you’ve practiced procrastinating and wasting time so much,” said my inner critic. “You can now procrastinate and waste time effortlessly. You’re an expert.”

“I know,” I said.”

“He knows the answers,” the metanovel said to my inner critic. “He just needs to practice the right things instead of the wrong things.”

“Try reading what you say about practice” the metanovel reminded me. “Read reflection 1, “"Practice! Practice! Practice!” Page 112. If you practiced editing instead of practicing procrastinating, you’d get good at it.”

“I know,” I said.

“You know what he’s doing right now, don’t you?” Asked my inner critic. “He thinks he’s writing, but he’s actually procrastinating. He should be editing. How stupid.”

“For once I think my inner critic is right,” I said to the metanovel. “I am procrastinating.”

“Then get to work,” said the metanovel. “Practice finishing.”

And I did.