becoming transparent

I've recently read some blog posts that are extremely vulnerable and real, thanks to the people writing them.  While I do not desire for my blog to be just fun and fluff (and I don't think it is), I've not been as transparent on here as I have been in my journal that I write in longhand.  In looking back over some of the things I've written in the early hours of my day, I can see more of me coming out on the page via pen and paper. So instead of reinventing the wheel in the form of new blog posts,  I've decided to put some of those handwritten entries to good use by posting them here in digital form.  A step towards being the real, struggling, not always perfect me.  ;)

It was the beginning of a journey where I was learning I loved to write.
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   I'm stalling and I know it.  Why do I do this?  I have done it to myself numerous times.  I used to stall, procrastinate, get paralyzed when I wanted to create a beautiful scrapbook; now the same is going on here (with my writing).  It's because of having to become vulnerable, take a chance and put myself out there that I hold back.
   I used to stall before starting a new scrapbook project- or even a page- for fear I would fail.  I would surround myself with the amenities- buy all the right stuff like cute embellishments, beautiful paper.  But when I alone had to make it all come together, I froze.  Not permanently, but because I so desperately wanted to be good at it, I was afraid to begin.  It always felt like a leap.  Silly, isn't it?

I was afraid I wouldn't create anything I was happy with, so I avoided creating anything all together.

  In contrast, I found that the more I did it, the better I became at it, and the less frightening and leap-like it seemed.  I am finding the same feelings surrounding me concerning writing.  The closer I get to it, the less I write.  It's so odd - and it wasn't until the other day that I realized I was having the same stalling problem I had before.

  I took a class the other night on "Getting Your Work Published" by Anita Nolan.  It was a terrific class, except for the fact that the things she told us I already knew through my previous year of research.  It was another example of how I would rather spend time gathering facts and getting ready rather than actually doing "the thing"  I'm afraid I'll fail at doing.  I'll read scads of books and articles about writing, go to a class on publishing, scour and love and buy and hoard picture books, but be afraid to look too hard at my own manuscript for fear I'll revise and rewrite and rework so long that I'll never know when I'm through.  Caught up in a vicious cycle of my own design.

  Even doing this- writing about my feelings and fear of failure- is a postponement of what I really should be doing.  At least- praise God - I'm writing!