As someone who has a history of only able to finish short projects, I understand completely how difficult it might be to get back on that computer after all the fun you have had this holiday season. Even if you didn't have fun and it was a season of dead expectations and disappointments or isolation and lonliness, either way, you may be down and wondering what the point is in carrying on.
     Who wants to hear your voice? Who cares about what you have to say?
      The thing I realized quite a while back as I am someone who has battled depression most of my life since childhood (but with good reason!), is what makes anyone else better than me? What gives someone else the right to be heard more than me? In the over-all scheme of things, do you look at every blade of grass on a lawn or in a field and think, "oh that one has the right to grow, but no, not that one."
     All the weight and burdens we place on ourselves are just that, our own inner voice. It may be one you pick up from other people including your parents, and one you do not like, then you have a voice already, maybe, just maybe, it is time to change it.
      Think about all those books you read and all those writers you admire. Every story is different. All of them have a slightly different plot, and story-line. Each one is unique and you have enjoyed them all.
     Just like when you write a story and then edit, edit, edit, you can do the same with how you think. The trick is finding out how you think. I am talking like a Buddhist now, however, I am talking about really hearing what you tell yourself.
     Do you know there are folks out there who tell themselves they are wonderful. That everything thing they do is great and they can do no wrong and have the right to everything they can get even at any cost to others? Yes they exist, and it is common among the young. I have worked years in the school system in Canada. Trust me, there have been generations now of young people who have been pushed through. Who have work that has never really been marked and no real consequences. They don't know how to take pride in what they do because they have achieved it. They don't know how to take criticism. They don't know what it means to fail.
    Would you rather be in their shoes? Blind to the real world and forced out into it without any realistic thinking at all? That is the other end of the pendulum swing, and it is just as debilitating as the one most depressed folks (we are not talking the ones with serious chemical imbalances).
      Sadly, many of these folks who are this way will struggle later on. In time in the real world they will find things are not as rosy as they thought and they are not prepared.
      So, you are where they are likely to end up if they don't get the proper support they need. You, however know what it is like to feel like a failure, or unworthy and all the other negative script you carry in your head. You have the extreme thoughts...EVERY one is out to get you and EVERY TIME, you try you fail.
     I know what it is like to have the knob for extreme thinking turned up in my head. I know what it feels like to have an all or nothing sort of attitude and I can tell you, such thinking will sink you every time.
     So, you have missed a few blogs or not been on the computer on schedule. Maybe you have writers block and can't think of anything to write. Maybe you have so much to write and say and so many ideas popping into your head your over-whelmed because you don't know what to do first! Your paralyzed because you have written some sort of script for yourself where you believe it is PARAMOUNT you get it right, that  you do things in a certain order and put the right book out there or whatever.
    Well, stop. THINK. Figure out what is holding your back and REWRITE THAT THOUGHT.Sometimes that one bloody assumption that has been drilled into your head since birth haunts you. Someone who didn't understand the creative process requires to make many starts, to explore, to try things and not necessarily go on with them while you find your one true thing, called you a quitter and that has stayed with you always. Maybe they gave you a label as a child that limits you such as you have ADD OR ADHD and if you don't take the pills you will never do anything properly...and you don't take the pills, so now what?
     It is sad to see the labelling that currently goes on in our world. The pigeon-holing folks so that someone with a limited ablility to see the bigger picture wants to find ways to define and control that which perhaps is beyond their capability to understand. All in the name of this or that. Call it science, call it humane reasons, call it what you want, the bottom-line, it is just creating another story that doesn't give you the space to grow. Whatever the story-line that has been put there, just remember, it can be changed as easily as changing your mind.
    The only drawback to this is that like editing, it never ends. There will be thoughts, and no matter how many affirmations you make, those thoughts will still be there. You cannot run from them, you can try and forget them until you have a bad day or a crisis in your life, then they may come back.
     Well, there is a way to deal with the story-line. There is a way to heal and cope that I have found can help.
      When you find yourself stuck in one of those plots; when you find you are telling yourself you are not worthy, or not capable, or whatever other thought that is holding you back from reaching your goals, think of it this way...that thought is like reading a book. Ok, you read that book, and it is done. Put the book down. Literally visualize closing the book and opening a new one with a much brighter title. You are not your thoughts. Just as you are not all the characters in the stories you read or write even if you are like some of them. You can close a book, call it done, and pick up a new book at any time, and you can do that with any thought that is holding you back. Remind yourself you are just thinking. No big deal. Put the book down.
    You cannot do this every minute of every day, but when you do sit and contemplate and find a script in your head that you don't like, simply close it, say "thinking" and put the script on a shelf. Recognize there are TONS of books on your self. There are tons of thoughts constantly running through your head. They are what they are, just thoughts, just as the books on the shelf are just books. You don't hate them, or need to change them, and you cannot read them all at once, so why bother worrying about it?
      I can only assume you write because you love to do it. If you are like myself, you love words, the play on them, the way the fit or don't fit and how they can be sculpted and put into different forms. Well, thoughts are words that just are not on paper so why not just take them, and reshape them? Change them, erase them out, ignore them or crumple the paper in your head and throw them away.
    Every minute of every day, every second, every breathe you are going to have a thought. There is no way to run away or any of that. So like the thoughts you put on paper and edit, edit edit, why not do the same with the thoughts in your head?
    Like the words you write, your thoughts are your voice and like the thoughts you put on paper, you can do whatever you want with them, including listen to them and allow them to interfere with your life. Just as you choose what words you write, what  books your read and what you edit. You can choose to figure out the script that you internally carry, recognize it, and proof read it, and change it or better yet, just remind yourself with saying gently "thinking" and carry on.
    I forget how fast an emotion can change but it is seconds. When we carry it longer than that, it is because of the script we have written for that emotion to even exist. Just imagine the power you would have and the energy, if you could just say "thinking" and carry on.
    I hope the new year is productive and you can get past your inner programming and recognize it for what it is. Nothing more than a thought. Then, just ignore it and get back to work! Write! Like I said, your voice, your words, are just as important as anyone else's!
    
    
     

 She goes into how to cope with difficult times. It is a great read and there is a reason it has been a best seller!

It is a book folks can relate to...since at some point EVERYONE shall have things fall apart. No one gets to escape this. It is called living!

You can try, however living a stress-free life is not possible. There is always going to be stress especially if you don't have the skills to cope with change since change is coming no matter what.

lIn my life, I have had many stressful experiences. Soooo many however I see no point in dwelling on the past. I have been there, done that. I have read the books and done the work and now am content to leave the past in the past where it belongs.

From this past however, I have lived long enough to see the pros as well as the cons of this thing called change.

As a writer, the more you have lived, the more you have learned and grown, the better your writing will be.

I have seen the same thing in painting. I have left painting and gone off and lived and come back years later, picked up a brush and was amazed at how much more mature my painting was. It was inevitable. My painting, like my writing, is a reflection of me. The more I live, the more I bring to the table so to speak, when it comes time to really develop charcters or plot or whatever. Still can't spell but oh well!!!

I know I am not the only Indie writer out there who is experiencing glitches when they write. I also I am not the only one out there experiencing glitches when they live.

It is all going to be ok.  It will all work out. Each time you experience something that forces you out of your comfort zone, the more you will grow. With that growth will come knowledge and this knowledge you take with you to your next glitch in life.

As you get older and more experienced, you will learn and avoid certain glitches. You will learn how to deal with your most common glitches too.

These glitches, some New Agers would say are your life lessons, that you have come here to experience and learn and when you learn them, that experience won't come up again.

Well Dahh! It isn't rocket science! Of course you will learn...even if you repeat the same mistake ten times, you will learn. You can bog it down with the dogma of some philosophy or another, or you can just accept life is full of lessons if you are willing to learn, you and I and everyone else has weak spots so of course we shall make the same mistakes or deal with the same scenarios until we can learn to avoid them. That is life since life is change and change can be seen as these glitches!

In the end, these glitches are really not relevant. What is, is how you deal and cope with them. There are strategies and ideas that have helped me over the years, and they could help you.

I will apply them to use writers in the following blogs.

My new motto is:  Get up and Carry on!