The writing process

Another big turning point for me yesterday.  Another one of the first pieces of writing advice I read was to give yourself permission to write a bad first draft.  I agreed.  I understood.  But did I actually follow through on it?  No, because my perfectionism and insecurity and my damn stubborness wouldn't quite let me.  I had several hours free yesterday that I could have spent starting a revision on an old story.  I open the file, I look at it.  Inspiration doesn't strike.  Starting seems so murky and so damn hard that I decide to play a game of free cell while I ponder.  I know what will happen.  I tell myself that this time it won't.  HAH!  Hours later the story file is still minimized on my screen. 

But finally I did start on it.  I wrote a sentence.  Deleted it.  Tried to think of how I wanted to say what I wanted to say.  Didn't come out right.  But I left it there anyway and moved on.  Came back, almost deleted it when a different way to say it occurred to me.  But in the end, I left the section with both versions in there, deciding I can come back to it later and then see which says what I want to say.  

It's all a learning process, right?  That never stops.