This is my laptop. There are many like it, but this one is mine....

Some bonus, baby-free downtime came my way today, so I indulged in a little "directed surfing" (which I guess is my way of rationalizing that avoiding work by reading blogs is okay as long as they are about writing, as opposed to celebrity gossip). While wasting time, I read some really great tips about writing here then here; also here, and oddly enough, here. Lots of different perspectives on the writing process, told in many voices, but the two main themes I picked up on are that successful writing is about (1) confidence and (2) discipline.

I wrote last week about the many ideas that have churned up during the recent tumult of my life; and now it's time for me to start putting some work into those ideas and figuring out which ones will fly. And while very little of my writing/working energy is spent on fiction (most of my work is of the non-fiction, self-help variety), the creative process is still largely the same.

Whether it's the chick-lit novel I've toyed with writing in my spare time for the last five years or the new parenting seminar I thought of last week, many parts of the process are similar (or at least can wear the same labels). Brainstorming, outlining, note-taking, research, collaboration, drafts, revisions, new drafts, re-revisions, opinion-seeking, overhauling, and eventually starting over despite the outcome... You get the idea.

All these activities require risk-taking and dedication, which in turn require confidence and discipline. Whenever I sit down to write anything -- even this blog entry, which seems innocuous enough -- I'm putting something on the line. It could be my reputation as a writer or therapist, my vulnerability as a person, or even just the 47 minutes I'll spend doing this as opposed to knitting or some other activity that might eventually help keep someone warm and would therefore be less disputably useful.

I have to be really honest here, sometimes when I look at my decisions to return to graduate school, take out obscenely large student loans, become a therapist, incorporate writing into my career, and then to be a (mostly) stay-at-home mom in the middle of it... well, I sort of wonder if it's not my own head I should be examining. Who the hell do I think I am to try to choose my own path in this way? And to risk my family's financial well-being to boot? Wouldn't it just have been better to stay in marketing, quietly earning a respectable income in a way that isn't offensive or scary to anyone? Maybe.

The truth is, the voice in my head that asks those very questions is always present and often loud. (You'll be interested to know she sounds a bit like Candice Bergen). This voice tells me I'm stupid for thinking anyone would care what I have to say on any topic, and I might as well just throw in the towel now and start playing the lottery -- because I have about the same probability of winning PowerBall as I do creating the next NY Times Bestseller or becoming the next Tony Robbins. Tony Robbins? Suze Ormond? Oprah? Someone cool, anyway.

And when I look around, there are lots of people who agree with me (having made the safest possible choices themselves), and about 10,000 ways I can picture myself failing and falling flat on my psychobabble butt.

Somehow, I've got to tune out Candice Bergen and look past the 10,000 paths to failure to find the one path to success. I have to be willing to take a chance on me -- confidence -- and I have to allow that confidence to drive into lots and lots and lots of hard work. So, discipline. And it's amazing to me how intertwined the two are. If I'm really honest, about half the time I don't get any work done, it's not really for the reason I state.

I might say "I'm tired," or "I'm bored," or "I'm legally required to file an income tax return," and those things may be true... but the truth is also that when I'm not working, it's often because I don't believe that what I'm doing is worth doing at all. What sounds like a time management issue is really all about confidence.

My first e-book was a great idea that everyone loved. It was also a colossal failure. No kidding - I sold three copies, and two of them were to my friends. (Thanks, friends!). Then, due to a misunderstanding, I accidentally bounced two checks on the bank account I set up just to keep that income separate from my personal income, which means I managed to end up in the red for a project that had no hard costs. That doesn't even include the hours I spent actually writing the damn thing.

Does that experience flit through my subconscious mind when I sit down to work on one of my newer projects? You're darn-tootin' it does. Probably more than I can even acknowledge now, in my smugly self-aware blogging persona. Besides, avoidance is so..... safe.

Just as my inability to run a mile without vomiting keeps me out of the military and the danger of being killed in service to my country (aha! so that's the reference), my inability to "squeeze in" time to write between diaper changes and folding laundry keeps me out of the line of critical fire, or maybe worse, quiet and obscure failure.

So the dangerous thing to do -- at least, in my own little world -- would be be buck up, get over myself and get busy. And to hope I don't meet Vincent D'Onofrio in the bathroom.