I'm Still Here and online journaling

I'm still here and writing. I've just started running into the same old stumbling blocks that I always do when I start a blog. After I was starting to make some progress I became really insecure about the stuff that I was writing and why did I need a blog anyways.

It's possible that I don't have the mindset that would give me something to post to a blog all the time. I guess that's really why I started this one up again though. I just keep putting so much pressure on anything that I write that it knocks me down to not writing anything.

I think that I am going to keep posting on here. Pushing through the many layers of self doubt and anxiety that keep me from writing on a regular basis and so that this isn't just some solely therapeutic thing for me I'll try to post a link or a piece of generally helpful information in case someone accidentally stumbles across this blog.

That last bit may hold up the publication of the blog posts a bit until I find something that I think someone will care about but it seems like that would be best for everyone.

Is this helping to break up the blocks of text?

I've recently started my own private journal on a site called Penzu. That's where I'm really going to throw down some free writing on a super regular basis because I don't plan on ever having anyone ever read that. It's just for me.

My most productive times of fiction writing have occurred when I've been regularly journaling. The problem was that the regular journaling was happening in a handwritten journal. While this helped my handwriting a lot it only helped my fiction writing confidence a tiny bit.

I started to write fiction down in my journal but it almost never made it into a word processor - so I almost never had anything but a rough draft.

Sorry that there aren't more pictures in this one.

This might sound weird but I journal because it's a way of giving myself permission to write. It allows me to fight back against those notions of self doubt in my mind that ask questions like, "who do you think you are?" or "what makes your words so special."

I need to now give myself permission to write on a word processor using a keyboard or my phone so that I can have a workable draft to develop into subsequent drafts.

The only way that I'm going to get passed those negative thoughts is to write and to write very very badly but with an enjoyable sense of freedom.

If anyone has any other thoughts on how to actually complete a workable draft of something let me know in the comments below so that others may benefit from your knowledge.

Oh and Happy May!