Happy New Swear.

This post is going to contain a fair amount of profanity. If that isn't your thing, or you're offended by such words, then you might want to skip this one.

I recently started reading the book Fuck It by John C. Parkin. It's quite good. The humour is a bit hit and miss and the language deviates from the point occasionally, but the message buried within the Fuck-laden prose is positive and serves to reinforce the message; Things aren't quite as important as we make them out to be.

I've not had a great month. I won't go into too many details here because this is supposed to be a blog focusing on writing, but let's just say things haven't really gone my way in December. I've spent a lot of time dwelling on things which seem huge and impossible to get through. I read a quote once which said 'The broader the imagination, the greater the fear'. I'm not saying I'm somehow blessed with a fantastic imagination, but I think people who explore their creative sides do tend to think about things a little more honestly. For better or worse.

So this book essentially says Fuck It. Fuck the problems, fuck the worry and fuck whatever might happen. I can relate to that. I tend to say Fuck It to quite a lot of things in my life. Always have. Worrying about things you can't change doesn't help. If a problem is out of your hands - or even a potential boon - then you might as well just wait for things to unfold by themselves. Saying Fuck It out loud does give a nice little boost.

I thought I'd borrow a very small part of the concept and apply it to writing, since it isn't directly addressed in the book (as far as I know). Writers can be incredibly good at procrastination. We look at the work we need to do and say 'Fuck it, I'll just make a coffee first.' Then we check our emails while we're drinking it. Then we quickly look at an article we've been linked. Then check our local writing forum. Soon we're browsing YouTube or talking to a friend on Facebook. Hours pass. We look at that writing and think 'Fuck it, I'll do the work tomorrow.' Check any writing site for forum posts or articles - it won't be hard to find one asking for advice on how to just get on with the work instead of avoiding it.

So try saying Fuck It. Fuck It, I'll just start. Fuck It, I don't need a coffee. Fuck It, I can look at videos of kittens later. I've done this a few times even before I started reading this book and it does help. I feel that mindset of avoidance sneaking up on me and then I have to force myself to just sit down, open the laptop, load Word and just get typing. As I'm sure many of you will agree, writing is much easier once you've started. Besides, what's the worst that could happen? Even if you manage to write one sentence, it's still one sentence more than you had when you started.

I'm not usually one for self help books or life counselling or all that jazz - I'm a guy from Essex after all, where we often deal with our problems with alcohol and loud music. But the concept Parkin utilises is pretty straightforward. Things aren't really as bad as we think they are as long as we're willing to accept that.

Fuck It.

Happy New Year everyone. I hope you all have a very positive year, full of success and enjoyment and stress-free living. I also hope you're all as excited about this summer's release of Queen of the World as I am. -sniggers-