Random early morning musings

So, I'm up at the crack of dawn (got up at 3:30, to be precise) because I have to catch an early flight for a business trip. So here I am, shockingly feeling wide awake, taking a few minutes to eat my breakfast and blog before I finish packing.

My alarm initially went off at 3 o'clock, but I hit snooze until 3:30, when I finally made myself go on a super early (or is that still middle of the night?) run since the rest of my day will be packed doing businessy business things. 

It honestly wasn't that I was just so sleepy that I needed another half hour of sleep. It wasn't that I wasn't excited to go on my run. It wasn't that I didn't have a number of other things to do, fun or otherwise. I just felt like doing nothing.

And, I often have to remind myself, that's perfectly OK sometimes! I'm guilty of trying to be Super Woman a lot of the time, trying to do everything. So I do admit that sometimes we have to just let ourselves sit there and do nothing.

But I think there's a big difference between doing nothing as a means of mental/physical recuperation, and doing nothing because we're afraid to take that first step to achieve goals we have in life. (Because what if we fail, or what if it's hard?!)

And I think I have been guilty of that second kind of inactivity lately, when it comes to writing. I'm really diligent about other important things in my life, like running and work and relationships, but when it comes to writing, I think I'm just so scared of failure that I find excuses not to do it.

Of course, the fact that I'm sitting here spending time writing this blog about not writing is a bit ironic, don't you agree? But anyway, I've told myself that I shall bring my favorite composition notebook with me on the business trip so that I can make myself actually do some writing on the plane. 

Because, just think of what could have been written in that half hour of non-needed nothingness this morning. Just think of the life that new characters could be gaining in the time that I waste playing Words With Friends on my phone. Just think of the possibilities!

Conquering the unconquerable

So, for about as long as I can remember, I've loved writing. When I was nine I wrote a (very short) book entitled "The Girl from Jupiter."

Can you guess what it may have been about?

Clever you! Indeed, a girl from Jupiter. Specifically, a girl from Jupiter who (mysteriously) has an identical twin sister here on Earth, of whom she is mighty jealous. Jupiter girl (mysteriously) flies a spaceship by herself to Earth, sneakily attacks Earth girl on the playground at school, locks Earth girl in the spaceship, and intends to live happily as an Earthling. Earth girl manages to escape from the spaceship, and the two live happily ever after as twin sisters on Earth. The spaceship becomes a permanent and beloved fixture on the playground.

What's that you say? How was this not a bestseller?! I've no clue either...clearly at such a tender age I already had an enviable knack for gaping plot holes, nonexistent world-building, and anticlimactic story arcs.

Fast forward *cough* a few years, and I've written one novella which is complete &$%#, and have been writing a full length fantasy novel for, oh gosh I dunno, three years now. And I'm still only on like chapter four. But hey, I've got a nifty plot outline and a cool little doodle of a world map on the back of a Starbucks napkin! That counts for something, right?

Anyway, I seem to have it in my head that getting this fantasy novel out of me is somehow unconquerable. Which I realize is a terrible mindset. Hence, blogging about it to remind myself of my limitless potential blah blah blah.

But seriously, all snarkasm aside (and yes I do credit myself with that portmanteau), I really do earnestly believe that attitude is (almost) everything. Or at least that things aren't very easily accomplished if we haven't got an attitude of perseverance and a belief that the seemingly unconquerable is in fact quite conquerable.

Alrighty, off to dream of my fantasy world.