The fight to get started

For me the worst part of writing is the part where I convince myself to sit down and write. There's always something else to do or distract me. Oh look, that YouTube video looks interesting... Oh wait! I'm writing, not watching videos. Maybe just one... No, fight the urge. Write.

I was reading The War of Art by Steven Pressfield again this morning. It's a short, easy read, but I find it useful when it comes to writing or making something. Anyway, in the first part of the book Pressfield talks a lot about Resistance. It's the force that keeps us from doing the stuff we really wish we would do. The stuff that helps us grow, build something, or work towards a worthy goal. Pressfield's way of describing Resistance is a force that actively tries to smother any of these things and it dwells in all of us.

I never knew Resistance had a name or a description like this, but I've certainly become familiar with how it feels. It really hammers on me when I see that I'm coming up on my scheduled writing time. The battle is entirely silent and it is intense. I'd like to say it ends once I sit down and open a document, but it doesn't. At first it seems like every word is another battle. As I get more into what I'm doing, Resistance fades away more and more. It still pops up, but it becomes less powerful for a while. If I get into the flow, it almost disappears. But I have to push through to that point.

Forcing my way through Resistance

The best method I have for forcing through Resistance is to just put words on the page. What I'm writing will almost certainly suck at first. That's fine though. As long as I start putting the words down, then more words come. The closer I get to being in a flow state. My ideas and words get clearer as I keep going. As much as I hate editing, it's easier to go back and clean up what I wrote than it is to stare at the blank page. Perhaps there's a better way to force through starting, but for now it is what I know and use.

Push through Resistance. It may be ugly at first, but that's okay. The better we get at fighting back Resistance, the closer we get to our objective. Battle back against it and write, make, or build something you've been putting off. Find the creative energy that you have and use it.