Your Favorite Forms of Writer Self-Sabotage

Published: Sat, 06/05/21

Hi WriteByNighters,

Frantically writing a story Sunday to hit a contest deadline, I made a typo.

No big deal, right? Fix, move on.

Here's what happened instead: I broke the fourth wall and began writing about the typo, then typos in general, then my family. Then I pasted random passages from a book I abandoned, went well over word count, acknowledged the fact that I went well over word count, then closed with "Thank you for reading it anyway."

Then I clicked "Submit."

It's one of the most unique forms of self-sabotage I've engaged in.

I write about this incident, and others, in this week's post, "How Do You Self-Sabotage as a Writer."

Are you a perfectionist? A procrastinator? Do you refuse to ask for help? Do you ask for too much help?

I want to know: What lovely brands of self-sabotage consistently trip you up?

Sincerely,

David Duhr
Co-founder, WriteByNight

P.S. If you know someone who might benefit from today's message, please feel free to forward this email along. Go on, help a writer out.

P.P.S. Last time, we talked about Sunday vs. Monday-morning internal critics.

P.P.P.S. In this week's episode of the Yak Babies podcast, my pals and I each talk about a book seemingly everyone else loves that we just can't get on board with. I won't spoil mine, but it's a novel about the Iraq War that I reviewed for the Dallas Morning News, it was written by Kevin Powers, and it's called The Yellow Birds. Any guesses?

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