day 11 and having a tough evening, just need a reality check.
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day 11 and having a tough evening, just need a reality check.
I'm sitting here staring at the open document of a paper I need to write---a paper that is MONTHS overdue---and I can't even start thinking about it, never mind make any real progress on it. I feel like I have nothing to say, no intellectual capacity whatsoever, I have so many people who believe in this project but I really just feel like I'm full of crap and am going to be stuck on this for the rest of time.
I have been procrastinating all day and I *have* to finish this this weekend, and my AV right now is SCREAMING to walk down to the store and get some beer. You know, to loosen up the creativity, or at least feel better about my lack of productivity. My cup runneth over with rationalizations, and all my triggers are perfectly in place---I am even alone for the evening, which is a big one. I have some other stuff going on in my personal life that is so incredibly stressful too, and I am just feeling generally lonely and useless, and with a serious case of what my therapist astutely calls the "f**k-its."
Uggggh. I know that drinking is not going to make all of this any easier to deal with---quite the contrary---but this blank page and unfinished project and the sheer creative effort it demands from me is doing its best to convince me otherwise.
I have been procrastinating all day and I *have* to finish this this weekend, and my AV right now is SCREAMING to walk down to the store and get some beer. You know, to loosen up the creativity, or at least feel better about my lack of productivity. My cup runneth over with rationalizations, and all my triggers are perfectly in place---I am even alone for the evening, which is a big one. I have some other stuff going on in my personal life that is so incredibly stressful too, and I am just feeling generally lonely and useless, and with a serious case of what my therapist astutely calls the "f**k-its."
Uggggh. I know that drinking is not going to make all of this any easier to deal with---quite the contrary---but this blank page and unfinished project and the sheer creative effort it demands from me is doing its best to convince me otherwise.
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Join Date: Mar 2013
Posts: 280
Originally Posted by gwenny 
I'm sitting here staring at the open document of a paper I need to write---a paper that is MONTHS overdue---and I can't even start thinking about it, never mind make any real progress on it. I feel like I have nothing to say, no intellectual capacity whatsoever, I have so many people who believe in this project but I really just feel like I'm full of crap and am going to be stuck on this for the rest of time.
I have been procrastinating all day and I *have* to finish this this weekend, and my AV right now is SCREAMING to walk down to the store and get some beer. You know, to loosen up the creativity, or at least feel better about my lack of productivity. My cup runneth over with rationalizations, and all my triggers are perfectly in place---I am even alone for the evening, which is a big one. I have some other stuff going on in my personal life that is so incredibly stressful too, and I am just feeling generally lonely and useless, and with a serious case of what my therapist astutely calls the "f**k-its."
Uggggh. I know that drinking is not going to make all of this any easier to deal with---quite the contrary---but this blank page and unfinished project and the sheer creative effort it demands from me is doing its best to convince me otherwise.
I have been procrastinating all day and I *have* to finish this this weekend, and my AV right now is SCREAMING to walk down to the store and get some beer. You know, to loosen up the creativity, or at least feel better about my lack of productivity. My cup runneth over with rationalizations, and all my triggers are perfectly in place---I am even alone for the evening, which is a big one. I have some other stuff going on in my personal life that is so incredibly stressful too, and I am just feeling generally lonely and useless, and with a serious case of what my therapist astutely calls the "f**k-its."
Uggggh. I know that drinking is not going to make all of this any easier to deal with---quite the contrary---but this blank page and unfinished project and the sheer creative effort it demands from me is doing its best to convince me otherwise.
Then when you finish your paper, don't drink until you hop on here and make some posts.
Then when you hop on here and make some posts, don't drink until you read some of the responses and some of the other peoples posts.
Then don't drink until you're ready to go through the alcoholic hell that brought you to this forum in the first place.
If you still want to drink after all that . . . Then I fear you may be an alcoholic and probably shouldn't drink even one.
Every Mother's Worst Nightmare
Join Date: Mar 2013
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Originally Posted by gwenny
Uggggh. I know that drinking is not going to make all of this any easier to deal with---quite the contrary---but this blank page and unfinished project and the sheer creative effort it demands from me is doing its best to convince me otherwise.
Complaining to a friend today that my motivation is at an all-time low. I'm into my fourth month this go around and I know it passes, but the length of time is different every time! Do anything to kick start it. Go somewhere you don't usually write. Just start scribbling garbage in a stream of consciousness. Have a set time in the day that you are going to write come what may and whatever the result for a 3 hr stretch. Sometimes it's nothing more than sheer bloody-mindedness and some discipline to get sh!t down on the page to break the damn.
Oh and the beers? Rubbish option and an absolute certain road to never getting this project done!
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Walks are great for clearing the head, but I have been for so many walks/runs/trips to the gym/taken care of so many errands trying to procrastinate this thing just today....I even scrubbed the *bathroom* today, for crying out loud. It's the kind of writing that requires a kind of clever argumentation that I just don't feel remotely capable of because I have lost so much faith in my ability to write after so many years of drinking and floundering and disappointing everyone including myself. I can tell myself "well, I'll feel more capable and tackle it tomorrow," but I have been telling myself that for so long now, and I have done a lot of drinking with that justification as well. It's a bad bad cycle.
Marchia in Aeternum
Join Date: Mar 2013
Location: Georgia
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Back away from the computer.
Pen and paper. Start with your subject line. Layout a general outline. Turn the outline into paragraphs. Write down the pertinent thought for each paragraph. Fill in the details.
Now you're ready for the computer.
I think computers force us to do too much in our heads. Back when I was in programming college I wrote all my computer programs on paper, longhand, after developing a flowchart. My programs were done, and I knew they worked, before I ever went near a computer. My classmates didn't understand how I could walk in to the computer center the night before an assignment was due and just type in a program, hit run, get my results off the printer, and leave.
Same process works with papers. Do your work on paper. Develop it. You'll know when you're ready to finish it.
Pen and paper. Start with your subject line. Layout a general outline. Turn the outline into paragraphs. Write down the pertinent thought for each paragraph. Fill in the details.
Now you're ready for the computer.
I think computers force us to do too much in our heads. Back when I was in programming college I wrote all my computer programs on paper, longhand, after developing a flowchart. My programs were done, and I knew they worked, before I ever went near a computer. My classmates didn't understand how I could walk in to the computer center the night before an assignment was due and just type in a program, hit run, get my results off the printer, and leave.
Same process works with papers. Do your work on paper. Develop it. You'll know when you're ready to finish it.
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That's a really good point Trachemys....I used to write it all out longhand too, but now I usually just do the outline that way. It might help kick something loose, especially if I go somewhere new to do it as Nattythreads suggests. I'm mostly trying to get through the night without drinking, but taking actual pen and paper to a new coffeeshop in the morning might be a really good strategy. 
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who is a fool ?
Originally Posted by gwenny
my AV right now is SCREAMING to walk down to the store and get some beer. You know, to loosen up the creativity, or at least feel better about my lack of productivity.
I remember in the early days
the old man in me persuaded by the liquid devil cried out
return to your deceiving thoughts
that say it is ok to take the edge off just a little
problem for me is
a little leads right back to a whole lot
then if God even gives me another chance
I'm very beat up yet once again as I start over
it is easier to just stay sober and work our way through these thoughts
in short time
we see that we are only fooling ourselves
who is a fool ?
a fool is one who fools themselves
onehigherpower
Marchia in Aeternum
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Location: Georgia
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Originally Posted by gwenny
That's a really good point Trachemys....I used to write it all out longhand too, but now I usually just do the outline that way. It might help kick something loose, especially if I go somewhere new to do it as Nattythreads suggests. I'm mostly trying to get through the night without drinking, but taking actual pen and paper to a new coffeeshop in the morning might be a really good strategy.
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Join Date: Apr 2013
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I always got truble getting my things done, wether its school, job or personal task, i am always months behind. The best way i can trick my self into doing it, is saying to my self, that in 5 min i got to do it, but just for half an hour. got to. i make my alarm in my phone go of in 5 and i start doing it. when i have done it in half an hour i am allowed to stop. usually just getting started is the most difficult part and i tend to forget keeping time and just work on till im finished. also the joy and satisfaction and good feeling you get about yourself when u done, is all worth it.
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Join Date: Jun 2012
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Sticky notes!. Just write one thought and post it on the wall. Get up. Walk from one end of the house to another. Write another thought. Post it. Go walk. Write the thought and post it. When you build up the wall. Orgonize them into three or four categories. Type them up and now you have the body. Conclude. Then write intro... I usually use coffee during the walk and do jumping jacks (im also a chocoholic) but its up to you.
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Originally Posted by gwenny
That's a really good point Trachemys....I used to write it all out longhand too, but now I usually just do the outline that way. It might help kick something loose, especially if I go somewhere new to do it as Nattythreads suggests. I'm mostly trying to get through the night without drinking, but taking actual pen and paper to a new coffeeshop in the morning might be a really good strategy.
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