For the most part, I blame my lack of ambition on fear. Fear of failing, fear of succeeding and not know what the hell I'm doing, fear of things that are new. I'm very comfortable in my little box. I look out on the other members of my graduating class who are married or have high end jobs. It just seems kind of stressful. Stress is something I avoid whenever possible. I'm content with my life, my friends and my itty bitty living space. Why would I need more?
If I were ever to be asked to write a paragraph describing me, this would pretty much be it. It's no secret that I'm a bit of a scaredy cat. I often create excuses not to do something and convince myself that I shouldn't even try. My self confidence in a few things is pretty solid, but on those things where I actually have to put it out there where people might not actually like it, I'd rather just leave it on my desktop to collect dust.
NaNoWriMo has been one of those things where I have to constantly tell myself that I can do this. Maybe it's just that I'm still finding my footing and my voice in writing, maybe it's just that I'm editing too much as I write. But I really think that I might be onto something this year.
Last year, I finished because I wanted to prove to myself that I could. It was the first year that I had ever finished. And now this year, I found a story that I'm actually pretty passionate about (the plot will remain a secret to the blog, for now). As I write it, I have to keep reminding myself that this is just a first draft, I can make all the mistakes, cliches and plot missteps I want, because they'll all get polished in editing. The whole point this year, is for me to get from point A to point B while making things make a fair amount of sense in between. Then when I'm done, I'm just going to have to dive in, and see what I can make out of this brain child.
Then, when it reaches that point where I'm just too terrified to finish, I'll look back on this entry, and this post, and say to myself "Do It Anyway."
