Photo: Madeline Masarik
Coo-ee, I’m ba-aaaaack! Remember me? It’s been a while.
I wrote about being a procrastinating perfectionist earlier on the year, and while it was mega therapeutic for me – and loads of you could empathise – unfortunately, if anything I seem to have got worse in that delightful department lately.
As soon as my to-do list or life in general starts to spiral out of control, and that feeling of overwhelm kicks in, I start to clam up and become paralysed with indecision and inaction. After 35 years, I know myself pretty well by now, and I’m therefore all too familiar with EXACTLY what’s happening, or about to happen. Or NOT happening, more to the point.
And what I’d really like to do is curl up in a ball and assume the foetal position/cry/escape to a remote, exotic beach until the feeling subsides/my to-do list magically disappears.
So to cut a l-o-n-g story short (I’ll spare you the details of what’s been going on in the background over the past few months but there’s been a LOT of illness, both my own and close family members, and not enough hours in the day to get everything I need to – or would like to! – done), this blog has been massively neglected – and not just because I’m time-shy.
I have ideas for posts – loads of them! – ALL THE TIME. But sometimes I sit on them for too long. I’m not exactly sure why. It’s a mixture of wanting to ‘develop’ the idea and a little bit of general fatigue/cba-ness.
But then days pass, followed by weeks, and before I know it, it’s been months since a fresh new piece of prose has been published round these parts *tumble weed* and I sort of get self-inflicted stage fright.
Oh, and therein lies my other problem btw: ‘piece of prose’ – I really need to get over myself and stop being so bloody precious about my writing. It’s a blog FFS – MY blog! I can write whatever I fucking like. And do swears: WANK STAIN! DICK STRAP! Now it sounds like I have Tourette’s, and also: HI MUM!
Nah, but SRSLY, I get waaaaaay too het up about producing perfectly-formed blog posts, with perfect pictures. Massively angsty. Bearing in mind I’ve removed the ads from here, and the less I post, the more my audience diminishes (NICE ONE, NAT), there’s really no need to give a shit about what I post, at least not to the degree that I do did.
I like to blame my lack of blog posts on not having enough time/being too tired blah blah de blah, but really, if I’m honest, it all boils down to the plain ol’ fact that I’M SCARED. Not in the shit-my-pants way in which I’m scared of spiders, clowns and Bo Selecta, but in a scared-of-failure way. Scared I’ll fuck up. Scared no one will read it. Scared people will read it and point and laugh. Scared people will think I’m an arsehole. Scared people will think I’m too old, to irrelevant, too opinionated. Scared there’ll be typos. Scared my writing won’t be perfectly polished and therefore won’t win the bloody Man Booker Prize or something. Scared the blog post IRL won’t match up to the witty repertoire all up in my head.
FUCKING RIDICULOUS, AIN’T IT?
Hi, my name’s Natalie and I’m a recovering perfectionist *waves*
Sooooo, I’m going to (try) and force myself to JFWEDD. Just! Fucking! Write! Err’y! Damn! Day! I’ve realised that I get at least two hours solid writing time on my commute to and from work every day (SHOUT OUT TO THE ETERNALLY SHITE MET LINE FOR THAT GIFT) and I could probably make better use of it than reading the free paper, scrolling mindlessly through Instagram and giving death stares to people openly sneezing on my head.
And I was going to hold-off with my newfangled plans and spring into action in the new year – fresh start, clean slate and all that bollocks. But why wait?
So yeah, that’s a little challenge to myself. Write something – no matter how crap, no matter how short, unfinished or plain imperfect and just be brave and hit publish. Every day. This may well lead to daily ramblings a bit like this one; spraying cyberspace with my stream of chaotic consciousness, like a belligerent drunk man having a messy piss up against the wall, but at least I will be writing. And feeling happy that I’m writing, instead of frustrated and guilty ’bout it. ‘Cos they aren’t good emotions to keep bottled up, and same applies to creativity.
I am sure, sure, SURE that Emma Gannon and/or Katie from Scarphelia have both brilliantly blogged about writing for writing’s sake, to hone your craft and develop your own style… but I’ll be fucked if I can actually find either of those posts right now – I’ll add in the links if I stumble across them again.
Guess I’ll see you tomorrow for another instalment of my batty internal monologue, then, won’t I? Shit, what have I done…
PS: One place where I have been writing regularly is over on GLAMOUR UK, where you can see my weekly horoscopes, which go live every Monday morning. Enjoy!
Comments
ANNA B
Being a perfectionist sucks BALLS. And ironically tends to ruin things for ya if you’re not careful thus rendering them IMPERFECT.
Natasha
Thanks for such a refreshingly honest post!
Rachel
I wish you would/could write every day! I love love reading your posts – you’re one of the best, most underrated bloggers out there! #JUSTSAYIN XOXO
Sophia G.
Have you seen some of the utter drivel that’s out there love? Even if you posted something you wrote half-asleep or half drunk would be a billion times better than most of that shite. YOU GO GURL!