This writer's blocked.

Nobody told me how problematic goal setting can be.

Posting one new article every week stems from the writing goal I set for myself at the beginning of the year. If you read my 2020 review, you must've seen where I resolved to do new things like set goals, write more, blah blah blah. 

Omo, it's so tough.  

I set a pretty hard writing goal for myself. In figuring out how I'd achieve it, I determined that no matter how many pitches I sent to publications, I'd still have to write personally to meet my targeted number of articles for the year. At the time, it seemed like it would be easy. Now I just want to go back to January whatever-that-date-was and kick myself!

I'm going through a very dry spell writing-wise. It's like it's peak harmattan season beneath my skull. I can't figure out what I want to write on and if I do manage to, I come up with so many reasons why I shouldn't go ahead and write it (I blame you, ILDC. You taught me to always think of rebuttals). It's almost the middle of the month, and I don't even know what I'm doing. All I know is I have constant backaches, no fresh ideas and a dry inbox. Right now, I'm playing a game with Grammarly; I erase and reconstruct any sentence that takes my writing score from 100 to 99.

I'm only doing that because I don't know what to write next.

I know I didn't set unachievable, unrealistic goals. I know what to do to achieve what I set out to achieve. The problem is in the actual doing. It seemed so easy on paper but now, I'm just so blank. The thought of putting out something new every week gives me a dry throat when I think about it. The essay I wrote earlier in the month was subpar. Microsoft word and I have a very intense staring contest whenever I want to write and most times, it wins because I close it instead of typing. What's annoying is the knowledge that there are so many great themes to explore and so many ideas casually lying around, but I just can't connect to them. The disconnection I feel is a lot greater than the one promised by the federal government to those without NINs.

My problem has a name, and that name is "writer's block." Wouldn't have thought I'd have to deal with it so early in the year but here I am, as uncreative as a blank sheet of A4 paper. Ah, wait. Even that can be folded for Origami. Own goal Tobi.

Anyway, they say the first step in recovery is acceptance. So, this is me accepting that I have a problem: writer's block. I don't know what the solution is, but I hope I'm over this nonsense soon because time is wasting and the bag must be secured.

By the way, the score is now 99. Grammarly cannot kill me.

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