Kristen Lamb writes in her blog about self-sabotage. I found many things in this post that sound awfully familiar to me and I’m grateful Kristen made me realize what I’m doing and that this isn’t healthy for me and my writing. Thank you very much Kristen.
There are SO many reasons why being a professional author is TOUGH. Much of what authors do is counter to human nature. It is NOT natural to sit still and write a 100,000 words. It’s human nature to avoid stress, pain, and trauma, while an author’s job is to inflict as much suffering as possible.
Good writers are death dealers, anguish agents, and pain peddlers (which probably is why we freak ‘normal’ people out). Yet, we know torment is necessary for the greater good. A ‘story’ without seemingly unbeatable odds, terrifying stakes, and white-knuckled tension isn’t a story.
It’s self-indulgent tripe.
The ultimate objective of any author worth their ink cartridges is to create so much pressure we might just give our readers the bends.
Yet, this is not ‘natural.’ It is also not simple. There is nothing about being an author that is easy, and thing is?
Most of us fear we don’t have what it takes.
We’re also terrified to admit this. So what do we do? We become our own worst enemies and self-sabotage. And, since writers generally are smart, we self-sabotage in ways that appear to be REAL work to the untrained eye.
Thus, today, we’re going to discuss some of the clever ways writers self-sabotage. Since I’ve been guilty of ALL of these (because I’m a ridiculous overachiever), I can speak from experience. When it comes to self-sabotage, I would have been top of the class…but didn’t study for the final until the night before.
Writer's Treasure Chest 
Good article. Thanks for sharing this.
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It was my pleasure, Juliette. 🙂
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Insightful.
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