Rachel's Rambles

I have come to a realization. I knew it all before, in bits and pieces, but the other night something crystalized for me and I now am at the crossroads, ready to choose a path.

I'm talking about how I have been avoiding my purpose in life, my passion, my talent. I can look back at any time in my life since I decided to become a writer and find at any given time at least one obsession with something, outside of writing, that taps into the well from which I draw my inspiration, blocking my access. The particular obsession changes, but I always have one. Or more.

For example, let me use World of Warcraft. I enjoy the game, the world, the interaction with other players, the quirky little humorous extras sprinkled throughout. But at one point, when I had recently made a pact with myself that I MUST finish such-and-so writing project by X date, I became obsessed with the game to the point where I literally could not sit down and write. I would always choose to play the game instead.

I think I've figured out that the quiet place, my creative well, is scary to me. It must be, or else why would I struggle so hard to avoid being alone with it?

I'm not sure exactly how to overcome this. But now that I'm aware the issue exists, I promise I will dig hard to figure out what's going on and fix the issue. Because it's keeping me from realizing my full potential, both as a writer and as a person. And I'm not willing to live with that anymore.

If anyone out there has experienced something similar - always distracting themselves from writing - and figured out a solution, I'm all ears.