The Eleventh Hour
Working out can teach you a lot about yourself. I can do a hard 45 minute run on the elliptical, really pushing myself, and I’m fine the whole way through… until the last 5 or 10 minutes.
At which point I am convinced that I can’t possibly make it, that I will never make it, and that the end is impossibly far away.
Even THIRTY SECONDS to the end, it’s all I can do to stay on the elliptical, so certain am I that I’m never going to make it.
I’m the same way with my WIP. At the eleventh hour, I feel like all hope is lost.
Same with life.
I wish, at times, I could change the timing of my self-doubt, but it seems fixed. I wish I could change the existence of it, too, but such is life. One foot in front of the other, though.
What about you? At what hour is your self-doubt the greatest? Is there a point at which you have to muscle through on blind faith that things will work out, even though you can’t see it?
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Natasha Fondren is a writer traveling the U.S. in a camper with her four cats. She is currently enjoying the lizards and desert heat in Arizona.
As far as writing goes I have a lot of trouble in the beginning, wondering whether whatever I’m working on is worth doing, thinking in the case of a novel that it seems an impossibly big task, but the further along I get the more doable it seems and the nearer I get to the end, the less I worry about whether I’ll finish because there is less and less to do.
Really? Wow, I wish I could give you a little bit of my confidence in the beginning, and you could give me a little in the end, LOL!
Your way is more logical!
I’m closer to Eric in my doubt stage. Of course, during my revisions, I start doubting all over again. I think all that doubt gives us an edge and makes us try harder. So maybe it’s not a bad thing.
That’s a great way to look at it! I hope you’re right!
when it gets rough I try to focus on just the next line, the next paragraph. Forget the whole thing. I can’t deal with it. I can only work on the next line.
I can’t either, Charles! That’s a great way of looking at it.
My doubt comes after I finish. Things that seemed really witty when I first wrote them, start to seem hostile or contrived, and I wonder if I’m sick of my own writing, or it’s a legitimate problem.
Ooooh, I generally hate my stuff when it’s done. Usually this results in me shrugging and putting it out there and thinking, “I need the money. C’est la vie!” LOL!