Yesterday a friend took me to task. She claimed I made two contradictory statements within 10 minutes. On the one hand, I declared that I loved to write more than anything. On the other hand, I mentioned that on Sunday night I dreaded Monday because I would need to write. “How could this be?” she asked. “Something’s off.”

To me–and I suspect to many writers–there was no contradiction. That dread/love feeling is well captured with the quote attributed to Dorothy Parker, “I hate to write, but I love to have written.”

Facing the blank page (or screen) is scary. Scary enough to stop you in your tracks. Yet, it is so satisfying to have worked hard on a piece, taking nothing but an idea or a half-baked vision of a character or plot, and bringing it to life. And the end-product doesn’t suck. (Occasionally, I even love it.)

The moment before pulling an idea out of your brain and onto the page feels like standing on a pool deck, looking down at the cold water. You know you want to swim laps. But the first moments are going to be a shock to the system. “Maybe just a few more minutes before I jump in….”

The dread is all based on fear of failure, I suppose. Can I possibly write something good? What will [fill in anyone’s name] think when they read this? How could I possibly think I could write something that will hold the reader’s attention? I try to push aside those thoughts, only sometimes successfully. “Don’t believe everything you think,” I like to say. And those thoughts are just the resistance talking. They are not real.

The best writers, or maybe the most at-peace writers, have dodged much of this angst by simply creating an intractable habit. No thinking before writing, just doing it. Stephen King famously goes into his office to write almost every single day of the calendar year. Nora Roberts says she writes every weekday from 9 to 5. When asked how she manages this, she answers that most people work 9 to 5, so why wouldn’t she?

A couple of years ago I re-read David Copperfield. I kept marveling at the fact that Dickens wrote it long-hand. On paper. With the only editing opportunity being to literally scratch words out and jot a revision in the margin. Oh, how lucky I am in these modern times. On the screen, I have infinite opportunities to edit, with nary a reminder of what I wrote that sucked, as it disappears from view with the simple act of “delete.”

Dreading writing is not good. I will admit that. It just means I need to pull from my toolbox all the tools that neutralize dread. The habit. The reminder that “shitty first drafts” are standard. The knowledge that the voice is just resistance, which is untrue.

Steven Pressfield likes to say that the voice of resistance is strongest when you’re ready to make a quantum leap forward. I guess it’s time for me to welcome the voice, thumb my nose at it. And dive in.

Well, here I am.