Here's an odd little thing to heap atop the mountain of odd little things that make my psychology: For the past few months I've found that if I tell people what I'm working on (literarily speaking), I end up not doing it.
I used to be a self-help freak, reading all the books, stopping well short of actually
doing anything, but I read again and once more that you should never tell people what you're going to do because it sucks all the energy out of it for you. Now I never bought into the magical aspects of the modern self-help movement, but I believed that a lot of the mumbo jumbo parts could easily be reinterpreted as the workings of the subconscious mind. Have I lost any of you yet? When did you give up on this post to check your e-mail for the hundredth time?
Anywho, I think that telling people what I'm working on might fill a psychological need for me that fulfills the same role as the need to show the work itself. If I want to write my story about the Jolly Green Giant and his penchant for wearing women's underwear, telling you that I'm doing it might satisfy my brain as much as actually writing it and showing it to you. So the thrill is gone and I am left a husk.
What I don't know is why this started happening only recently, or maybe it happened and I hadn't noticed it, hence my struggles with my archenemy,
Process Five.
In summary I won't be telling you what I'm working on anymore. I'll just tell you when I've finished something, sent it out or had it published. We'll see how that works.
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