Obsessions and Focus

This month of productive obsessing is going along pretty well. I am re-learning how to turn my focus to things I actually want to be concentrating on. I also had an epiphany about some of what holds me back in my writing, and I think this could end up being really useful.

For a long time now I've known what at least some of my fears are, but I haven't been able to figure out what to do about them. This week I realized that while I had a general fear category that my conscious mind was aware of, I didn't actually know the details. I think it's very hard--maybe impossible--to deal with unnamed fears.

But now I have a name for those fears. Or at least a description: I fear that, while I have plenty of story ideas and even scene and dialogue ideas, I don't have enough depth of ideas to flesh them out and make them into full stories that are worth reading and writing. I am also afraid I don't have the technical know-how or the ability to take all of the disparate scene ideas and dialogue snippets and weave them together into a whole story.

These are more specific issues, and I am hoping that it will be easier to deal with them than with the general "I'm afraid I don't have talent" fear that has been living in my brain for so long.

I had another epiphany while working on my productive obsession. My choice to obsess about writing a novel and getting it ready for submission was big, but it wasn't big enough. Or maybe more accurately it was just a part of a whole. I realized that I want to focus on changing my life and creating a career that means something and feels right to me. So, in September, I'm going to start training to be a creativity coach. Scary and exciting and that's exactly how I want to be feeling! Right now I'm just getting money together for the first course and weeding out some time killers in my life so I'm ready to start the training in the Fall. But look for more on this new addition once September rolls around.