Inertia (pride and difficulty)

I like to write. I’ve written quite a bit. No, I’ve never been published, but that’s not the point of my writing. I write things I enjoy reading and things I enjoy writing. Some people don’t see the point of that. Why write if you’re not going to get published? Not every hobby has to make money. Some hobbies are their own rewards.

So, why don’t I write more often? It’s not as easy as a computer game. While exercising has an emotional investment, writing involves two other of inertia’s weapons – pride and difficulty. I write in phases. It used to be poems, then it was short stories, now it’s novellas. I’m going to use novellas (mini-novels) as the example, but it works with any kind of writing.

Writing a good novella is not easy. Writing any novella is, but my pride would prefer that I write a good one. It’s simple to do – you put words onto paper. But, doing it well is not that easy. And I want to do it well. One of the reasons I write is so I can go back and reread it later, and who wants to read something that’s written poorly? Especially if it’s something I’ve written myself. I take pride in my ability to write. I’ve been doing it for decades. It’s something I think I’ve gotten pretty good at. I have a large vocabulary. I have a decent knowledge of grammar. (Yes, I know that two sentences ago I ended a sentence with a preposition.) I can construct an okay plot and somewhat realistic characters. But it’s taken a lot of time and practice to get to this point, and my pride insists that I keep getting better. Getting better is difficult. Writing at this level of proficiency would not be hard. Rewriting the sort of things that I’ve already written would not be hard. But, there are new stories to tell, new plots to make, new characters to describe, and new pieces of fiction to complete. And my pride wants me to do it all well, but it’s not an easy thing to do.

Computer games or movies, on the other hand, are easy things to do, and I have little to no investment of my pride in them. That’s why they win too often. I’ve had more experience combating emotional investment and inertia than I have pride. This is a lesson I’m learning again right now.