Pen-Elayne on the Web

So, what's your excuse?

We all have them, you know. I have a number of friends whose excuse seems to be fear of failure, fear of success or both. They don't finish projects because everything sounds so much better as a concept; the execution can't possibly match the way they've talked up their ideas in their own heads. Execution is, you know, hard. It takes work and discipline. But ideas are just fun, they pop out all the time and you really don't need to do anything with them other than pass them on and have your friends say "Wow, what a great idea!"

My excuses probably encompass one or the other fear mentioned above, but they take the form of Practical Matters. A big one that's served my psyche well for the past few years is "I can't write stories because I can't form coherent thoughts with the constant interruptions around me." The True Excuses are always the best ones, but that doesn't make them any less excuses.

Because, you know, I write anyway, even with interruptions. I do message board posts, I do this blog now. I seem to find time to do the Fun kind of writing rather than the Disciplined kind of writing. So it's really just me saying, "but maaaaaa, I don' wanna go to work today!"

Of course, just as it's easy to come up with ideas and hard to actually sit down and execute them, it's equally easy to recognize our excuses but hard as all get-out to do something about them.

So, what are you going to do about your excuses?