Excuses, Excuses

By Jamie DeBree 2026/05/30 Weekly News, Writing Notes

I always have an excuse.

It’s been a long day at work. My head’s just not ready for it. I didn’t have a chance to review what I’ve already written. I didn’t have what to write planned for the day.

There’s always something.

Every time I say I’m going to write at a certain time every day, or I’m going to dictate on the way home from work, it’s like I can pull an excuse out of thin air. They all seem like (and are, for the most part) perfectly valid excuses for why I can’t be creative. I am tired. My head’s not in the right space. I haven’t had time to review my notes. My mind is still in work. I still have a problem or three from the day that my brain is trying to solve.

At the same time, even though they’re valid feelings/complaints, they’re still just excuses. And at the end of the day, I still have the power to override those excuses. I can get in the car, open up my recording app, start a recording, and force myself to just start talking. I can, at the end of the evening, make it a priority to go back in my home office, sit down, open a manuscript and start reading what’s already there.

If I sit down and open up a document or if I open up the recording app on my phone and start talking, it doesn’t really take very long to forget whatever I was just complaining about, and start being creative. No matter how tired I am or how long of a day it’s been or who’s been talking to me or what problems been rolling around my mind, it really doesn’t take longer than a few minutes for me to get out of that defeatist sort of “I can’t” attitude and into a more productive frame of mind where I’m actually able to move forward and create.

I am my own worst enemy (as usual), and the only way I can think of to get over that is to force myself to get in the car and open the recording app every single day after work. It takes me longer to log in to the phone than it does to just hit that button and then start the recording as soon as I get out of the parking garage, which I have to stop to do anyways (and that gives me a perfectly safe time to tap the “record” button.

At night, all I have to do is sit down with a draft. That’s it. Once I start reading that last paragraph, I might go back another paragraph. I might go back another paragraph after that. But the thing is, three paragraphs in, I will not only find things that I want to change, but my mind will be grabbing on to the story again, and I will want to find out what happens next. Starting to write will come naturally, but I have to put myself in front of the document for that to happen.

I am the only one keeping me from being creative or productive when I allow those excuses to stand in my way. I have the power to move past them. I have the power to work in spite of them, and I have the power to give my brain something to grab onto that’s not negative and defeatist. I can start my recording app and start talking even if it makes no sense. It doesn’t have to make sense for the first few seconds. I can easily delete those sentences or paragraphs or whatever.

Then when I read through it and I fix whatever I was gonna fix, I want to know what happens next. My mind is naturally curious. It wants to continue with the story. It wants to know what the character’s gonna do in that situation or how they’re going to move forward. All I have to do is get myself in front of that draft.

It’s a bit harder to start dictating when the story isn’t yet in mind. There’s a black screen on my phone when my recorder is running, so it’s not like I’m looking at my phone to dictate (or I wouldn’t be able to do it while driving). So I do have to kind of get myself oriented in the story before I start, which is a little more mental work. No reason I can’t plan out that scene the night before, and review it when I review my planners just before I leave work.

None of this is terribly difficult. I can do it, I know. I just have to work over (through/around/whatever) that “victim-of-my-life” attitude and get the work done.

I actually started dictating this blog after I pulled out of the parking garage Friday night. When I get home, I uploaded it to the transcription program I use (ProseWrite), had it transcribed. Then I just had to do some edits on it and voila! Blog post done.

I realized toward the end that this post was the fourth I’ve actually gotten done this month, so go me! Now I just need to get that process done earlier in the week, so I’m not up super-late posting these on Friday night/Saturday morning. But I’ll get there. Sleep is important, after all.

Speaking of which, I’m going to post this, and go get some sleep. Cross your fingers we get rain, but no storms. I have a feeling Honey-dog is not going to do well with thunder, but we’ll see. If it would just rain without storming, that would be fantastic (and more conducive to sleep).

Until next time,

Jamie

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Tagged on: attitude, excuses, mindset, procrastination, productivity, weariness