I spend another long day at a job I don’t like. I’m annoyed the entire time, counting down the minutes until I can finally go home. I try to make it bearable by daydreaming about how wonderful it will be once I get there and can finally do what I love most. Another idea is brewing in my head.
This essay is going to be great.
I’ve finally solved that plot problem and I know how to connect the threads.
I really want to draw that image I keep seeing in my mind.
I get home and… nothing.
No energy. I can’t bring myself to start. I don’t feel like doing anything. I move my sketchbook from one corner to another. I take out a pencil, only to put it away moments later. I open my notes app on one screen and YouTube on the other.
I’ve been waiting for this all day. So why is it that when I finally can start, my thoughts get tangled, the keyboard suddenly burns my fingers, and I forget basic face proportions?
I think about it and I feel like I’m starting to understand where this comes from. At least, I’m beginning to.
I love coming up with ideas. I love having them and making plans, thinking things through, dreaming about what I’ll write, organizing everything into a logical whole. I love building color palettes in my head, imagining and reliving the emotions I’ll feel while looking at a finished painting I’ve created.
But the moment I sit down in front of a blank page, fear hits.
All that enthusiasm disappears. Suddenly everything else becomes more interesting, more important, more engaging. Even doing the dishes.
Why?
I’ve had this problem for many years, and I’m sure I’m not the only one.
Although sometimes it really feels that way.
Still, when I finally force myself — telling myself I’ll just scribble a quick sketch, spend only fifteen minutes, write a few loose notes — I often catch myself getting completely absorbed. And somehow, it works.
Not always, but more often than not the problem seems to be my mindset. The thought that I have to write something, that I have to finish and publish an article. When my head fills with those thoughts, I feel almost physical pain, along with overwhelming guilt and anxiety.
This is no longer relaxation. This is survival.
And I think that’s the core of the issue.
Whenever I create, my thoughts immediately go to obligation and quality. That it has to be good. As if my life depended on it. I can’t seem to shake that mindset. My perfectionism eats me alive and ties up my creativity.
On top of that, daydreaming is a real issue for me. I feed myself with imagining and fantasizing, and the more I indulge in wandering thoughts, the more painful the physical act of creating becomes afterward.
It starts to feel like punishment rather than relief.
This is where the collision happens — between the ideal version of the book that exists in my imagination and the real one that’s being created in the physical world. A book that comes into existence through hard work, requiring hours, days, weeks of planning, extreme focus, and frustration. Giving birth to one word after another on the page.
In my head, there lives rent-free a romantic image of a writer spending the day in a sunny garden, tapping away on a typewriter, letters forming words, words forming sentences, sentences forming paragraphs, paragraphs forming chapters.
In my head, the writer is always happy — or romantically disturbed and troubled — but always in their element, always in that dreamy, desired flow state, pouring their soul and emotions onto the page, accompanied by birds chirping and the steady clatter of the machine.
Click, click, click.
A mad romantic genius.
An artist.
Words flow out of the printer like spells cast with a wave of a magic wand.
It’s all so beautiful. So wonderful. So… easy. Right? It should be easy.
But like most things in life, writing doesn’t necessarily require effort as much as it requires practice — stretching and training the muscles.
It’s a skill you can train, and the more you try, the easier it becomes. I understand this logically, but my heart still longs for that romantic artist in their garden studio.
The hardest part is always starting and breaking the habit.
So how do you start?
That’s the question.
Do I know the answer? We’ll see.
This page is a test, a record, a diary, a manifestation.
This page is my writing manifesto, my training ground, my educational plan.
A solution for overcoming weakness.
My plan for the near future looks like this:
Have a plan. Let it be realistic — one that won’t destroy me but strengthen me. One I can slowly implement in my life.
Live a little less inside my head. I really like it there — it’s not always cheerful, but it’s colorful. Unfortunately, it’s hard for me to leave it, because reality can be so grey.
Write drafts. I don’t write masterpieces. I’m not Hemingway, and maybe one day I’ll be able to aspire to that level — but to ever aspire to it, I first need to write. And that’s where I clearly struggle.
I’ll write drafts, notes, anything — just to write, write, write. Anything at all, just to open a notebook, set a fifteen-minute timer, and write whatever comes to mind. Even if my head is empty — I’ll describe my day, who I saw, who I talked to, what I ate. Maybe something interesting will emerge. And if not — that’s fine. That’s completely okay.
One essay a week. Finished and published. That seems realistic. Back in school, I had to write essays every week. I became very efficient at it — I could throw one together quickly between classes and still get top grades.
Progress over perfection. Consistency.
It’s better to write or draw every day — even badly, even without noticeable progress — than to do it once every six months. Doing ten sit-ups a day will get you further than doing a hundred in one day. You’ll exhaust yourself and never want to do it again. But doing ten consistently, every single day, you’ll grow.
Yes — it’s time to break out of this lethargy.
It’s time to peek around the corner and see what’s waiting for me there.