What’s so hard about writing every day?

I keep trying (and failing) to establish a daily writing practice. Now, I’m trying again. But maybe I should look at why I keep failing at this. What’s the problem? I keep blaming lack of focus, ADHD, Facebook and other distractions, and just plain forgetting to write. I need to make it a habit, automatically starting each day with a writing session.

I often wish there was a non-addictive drug that could fix my problem. I’ve tried caffeine, and in fact downed a mug of black tea this morning so maybe that’s why I managed to even open the laptop to write this—who knows? But I also started reading Marion Roach Smith’s excellent blog about writing memoir, and felt inspired to try again.

But aside from a distinct lack of focus (which reminds me, I really need to read the book, “Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence” by Daniel Goleman), the real problem seems to be indecisiveness. I can’t decide what to write about. I have so many ideas, some of them good ones, but I can’t seem to commit to any one of them long enough to follow through.

I thought lowering my sites from writing books to writing personal essays and op-eds would do the trick, and it did help; I’ve written several of them in the past few months, and that feels good. But what I really want to do is write books. That requires a whole ‘nother level of focus, one that I don’t seem to have.

Which reminds me of a story:

Back in my hippie days, I decided to throw a house-warming party to celebrate the beautiful-yet-cheap apartment my roomie and I had just moved into. We went around to the bars we hung out in and invited everybody we knew to come to our party, scheduled several days hence. Then we  cleaned, bought a dozen, dozen daisies to ring the as-yet unfurnished living room, made a big vat of chili, bought a couple cases of beer, and at the appointed time, sat down on the floor to wait for our company to arrive.

No one did.

Of course, we hadn’t accounted for one thing: expecting our barfly acquaintances to remember the date a week in advance, and the address, without having it in writing, is expecting too much of anyone, much less a bunch of drunks.

But I was not in a forgiving mood. Even though I knew in the back of my mind that my expectations had been unreasonable, I pushed the thought back. I wanted to wallow, and wallow I did. When I showed up for work at my mother’s diner the next morning, she asked me how the party went.

“Nobody showed up,” I replied, my face dark, angry.

“Oh!” said Mom, who tiptoed around me, afraid to say a word for the rest of the morning. She knew better than to try to cheer me up.

Lunch break came, and I sat at the counter to stew over my burger and fries. How could they do this to me? I thought these people were my friends. Nobody likes me.

That’s when it hit me: I needed a new definition of friendship. People you hang out with, drink with, and sometimes even sleep with, are not your friends. They’re just people you know. There is no reason to be angry with them for not remembering to come to your little party. Why should they?

And why was I trying to make my mother feel sorry for me? I had to admit that was exactly what I’d been doing with this self-pity act.

In fact, now that I thought about it, for some time I had been trying to make those very people at the bar feel sorry for me—even to the point of applying makeup to make me look sad. I had seen too many movies and somehow come up with the idea that a beautiful-but-tragic heroine (me) would attract oodles of heroes waiting in line to save me.

Not that it worked.

The realization hit me with a shock. It was all so clear now. I was at least partially correct to think that nobody liked me, but there was a reason: Nobody likes a boring, self-pitying drudge.

But what could I do about it?

I’m sorry to say that it never occurred to me (until much later) that hanging out in bars is not the best way to meet stable, interesting men who might find me interesting too. But I did think of one idea that changed everything: What is the opposite of pity? Admiration. Go for that. I didn’t know how, but just the thought brightened my mood.

Lunch break was over. I got up and went back to work, smiling. Poor Mom must have been confused.

When I went back to the bar that night (minus carefully drawn makeup), I didn’t mention the party to any of the invitees. I was still smiling when a cute young guy I barely knew stopped me in the crowd.

“What happened to you?” he asked, slurring a bit, clearly drunk.

“What do you mean?”

“You used to look so—so desperate.”

I had to laugh. Yes. Yes, I did. I had discovered the secret to happiness—at least for a while; life can be a roller coaster, after all.

But it was a lesson I never forgot: Self-pity is for losers.

—

What does this story have to do with focus? I think it’s that a simple mind-shift can change everything. So, what mind-shift can I make to cure myself of not-writing? Well, what’s the opposite?

I am a writer. Writers write. Every day.

Go for that.