How’s that for Openers? I suppose that I’m stretching my use of interesting titles to its limits. I never really knew how to start writing something like this. I didn’t know if there had to be a Title, Subtitle, Header, Headline, Byline or if anything at all need be at the top of the page. Or what it needed to say. If anything at all. But shouldn’t there be something up there? Something to describe what is about to be written below? Because how can anything be written on the page if you don’t know what it’s supposed to be about? That was Obstacle Number 1.  Stupid, I know.

Obstacle Number 2 was even starting the writing. What do I write about? Is it Fiction? Non-Fiction? A little of both? None of it? I knew I wanted to write. But finding something to write about was a bit of a speed bump in my pen being in any way active on my page. It was awkward.

Like forcing two friends to meet because one really likes the other and has incessantly told you to “make the intro’s bro!” but the other has told you specifically never to set them up, “Especially with that guy.”

Pen and paper just would not get together. They wouldn’t hold hands, they wouldn’t make out, and get married, and procreate and make happy little paragraphs.

Ideas were never a problem. There was an abundance of those. I could be walking around town and have a thought, “I should write about fainting goats.” Or taking a shower and, “I could write about vegetarian bears.” The ideas were always there. It was just starting. There was never a good time to start. Never a good piece of paper. Never the right pen. Stupid, I know.

Obstacle Number 3 was that I sometimes just don’t want to. I’m not motivated to at that particular time. I don’t have the time. I. Just. Don’t. Want. To. But I do. But then I don’t. But I DO. But I don’t.

When I don’t, it’s usually because I feel like I don’t really have anything to say. That there is no story, no idea, no insight that I could have that could be written down and be interesting at all. To me. Especially to anyone looking online, or that might walk into a bookstore, browse the shelves and pull a collection of my thoughts and insights down, and spend their hard earned money on. I defeat myself before I even get a chance to write something down.

Fear. Doubt. Each and every negative thought that could stop a person from achieving anything of worth, I’ve felt and am still feeling. Even as I write this.

So nothing gets written. Or it starts, but doesn’t get finished. It just sits on a page. Waiting. And that’s where it becomes a problem. But problems can be solved.

That’s why I’m doing this. Writing these pages and publishing them on a blog. Putting them out there. To write. To start. For me. For the fainting goats and vegetarian bears. The unfinished pages in countless journals and napkins. To finish something and follow the advice of Nike and Just Do It. To solve my problems.