"Paranoia strikes deep,
Into your life it will creep."
-- Buffalo Springfield, For What It's Worth
I often have a difficult time writing, because I write for an audience. In the same way that I have a hard time jogging just to jog, rather than to get somewhere, I have a hard time writing without a purpose. An audience fills that purpose, even an audience of one, but being the analytical and overthinking person that I am, I constantly wonder what a person who reads this will think.
I will erase, re-write, erase, re-write, and pore over the words for hours on end. More often than not, this ends in me permanently erasing the whole work.
Another issue is that as a cynical person, I am always certain that the reader is judging me. While I have no problem being judged by someone who knows "the whole story," I am terrified of being judged based on small pieces of information, so I often tell stories backwards. As I write a paragraph, I remember a facet of another story that would put this one in a better light, or make it more easily understood, and I begin writing its prequel.
I need to write this down, so please excuse me, while I attempt to deviate and leave the words in place long enough for you to read them, or at least for me to believe you have. It's difficult, it probably won't work, but I have to try.
