Post-Partum SFD Paralysis

"When I write, I feel like an armless legless man with a crayon in his mouth."

~Kurt Vonnegut

I'm looking at a toppling pile of notebooks and papers and books, to which I'm refusing to add anything else. Unless I'm willing to accept the consequence of insanity. Which I don't have time for.

The pile is dedicated to information related to rewrites.

My psyche is dedicated, at the moment, to self-destruction.

At the time I began amassing this amess, or amessing this amass, I told myself, "Not now. Right now, you need to write your SFD ('Shitty First Draft' ala Anne Lamott). Time to learn all about this later."

What a dope.

No longer stricken with post-partum SFD paralysis, here's where I'm heading:

• I've determined that whatever I decide, the first step will be daunting. Get over it.

• Like trying to eat the elephant in the room, I will handle the task one bite at a time. (Who in the world is responsible for morphing the idea of an elephant in the room into something I would like to eat? They should be shot. Then eaten.)

• I'm smart enough to learn forever. I'm not smart enough to get it all figured out this afternoon.

• Figuring out a system that worked for me to write an SFD took some trial and error, and so will figuring out a system to rewrite. I will heed what those who've gone before me advise, but ultimately it will become a personal blend of what works and what doesn't.

And so . . . there's no time like the present.

CR: About to finish Relentless by Dean Koontz. It's about an author running for his life and a lunatic book critic stalker. Don't you wonder where he got the idea?

It's all better with friends.