It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might has well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default.
J. K. Rowling
So …
I had been going really well with this blog until I was ‘freshly pressed’.
It was easy to keep on blogging to three followers and my Mum.
A well-meaning person asked how I could write anything after the freshly pressed post; “How can you follow that up?” she asked in a well-meaning way because she is a well-meaning person. She explained, well-meaning-ly, how she would be too scared to put anything else out there after that sort of ‘recognition.’
I laughed at her well-meaningfulness – yeah, right …
Then I thought.
And thought.
And did just as she predicted.
I wrote nothing.
I was busy. I was working. I was putting on a play. I was going out for a run. I was cleaning the house. I was calling my sister. I was popping to the post office. I was meeting a friend for coffee. I wasn’t sleeping. I was cooking an elaborate meal. I was working through my lunch break. I was reading. I was – I was – I was … avoiding.
I was scared.
I felt like Alanis Morrisette trying to follow-up Jagged Little Pill … minus the worldwide acclaim, success, fame, money, talent, musical ability, friendship with Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Grammy Awards etc etc etc … OK, so, maybe not quite like Alanis but I am sure you understand what I am saying. (And, for the record, I really loved her follow-up album Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie)
I found that I couldn’t write. Anything I started wasn’t good enough, witty enough, political enough, relevant enough … blah, blah, blah, really, I was just scared.
I was scared of writing on my blog.
Isn’t that one of the most ludicrous lines ever? I was scared of writing on my blog … When I put it like that I could finally see the ridiculousness of the situation.
Chemical warfare is scary. Failing at a blog … I don’t even think that is a ‘thing’, right?
It is time to put things in perspective.
It is time to break the neurotic writer cliché thing and just get writing.
OK. Who am I kidding? It isn’t that easy. Being a neurotic writer cliché thing means I rarely put things in perspective. But I can make a start …
So, thank you “Freshly Pressed” and the extra 197 followers and my original 3 followers and my Mum … I will keep on writing … And I hope you will keep on following …
katy warner 
Good to hear it. I’ll look forward to hearing more from you.
Ernest Hemmingway called it ‘The tyranny of the empty page’. As good a description as any. I must get on with writing mine … no, wait. I have to weigh the cat first.
Keep up the writing Toots.
D
Ernest Hemingway called it ‘The tyranny of the empty page’. I will get on and write mine now … no, wait I have to weigh the cat first.
Keep writing, Toots.
Much love, D
Write on!! Can’t wait to read more
Freshly Pressed can be so full of archetypal posts–each furnished with a sleek picture/diagram or two, a thousand attention-mongering tags, and paragraphs of linearly presented opinions that aren’t poignant enough to be memorable.
What happened to good old hardy stories? The whole authentic and artistic notion of “tell all the truth but tell it slant”? If were there was no such a recognition pool as “Freshly Pressed” to alter one’s genuine drive to write, then there would quite possibly be a lot more of honest pieces like your “Temporary.”
I just read another post on the aftermath of being “Freshly Pressed”. I pray I will have the same problem in the future, lol. The other blogger came to the same conclusion, she just started writing again.