The tree outside my office window has a hand that flips me off

No -- really, it does.

Where I live, the trees are in full bud-mode, but there's this one that is still winter-bare, and on the west side of the tree there's this bony hand flipping me the bird. Considering my vantage point for this treehicular insult is the spot where I attempt my writing...well, it's just not a very good omen, I don't think...

I'm in a writer's group now; a local group of women, young and old, bonded together by the nebulous desire 'to write'. Some want financial success, some desire personal success and, for most of us, the goal is simply 'to have a goal'.

I have a goal. Oh, yes. I've always simply worded it 'to be published'. It's always been enough, because, see, I'm a procrastinating perfectionist (re: evidence: this blog's dearth of posts) -- I don't need a goal more specific than that because then I'd actually have to back it with action.

And that is where the real fun begins.

I've got this guitar -- It's a travel-size Oscar Schmidt Washburn acoustic steel -- that I saved up for over many, many months. I put aside every little bit of spare cash I had -- birthday money, Christmas money and lint-furred spare pocket change -- in the hopes that I could afford a guitar on which to learn.

Being 43 years old, and having already taken up the guitar in my late-teens for a couple of years, I didn't walk into this blind; I knew of the blinding neuro-pain I'd have to endure in the fingertips of my left hand... (although I wasn't fully aware of the mid-to-severe arthritic complaints of my left shoulder and elbow that would accompany this journey at an older age, but that's another story)

I knew practice would be hard, and finding time for it even harder. I knew to expect slow progress because, let's face it, the 43-year-old brain doesn't catch on as fast as the nineteen-year-old one. (come to think of it, neither do the 43 year old fingers...) I knew I'd probably never be Eddie Van Halen, but I'd hoped I'd be the best Solard.

And yet... I walk into that office (the same one that I avoid writing in. Coincidence? I think not.) and stare at that guitar and --? Turn around and walk out. That's exactly what I do. I get all gut-twisted, and I walk away. Because...?

Same thing with the writing. Someone in my writer's group said, "Tell people you are a writer when they ask what you do... that way you'll be too embarrassed not to write." Good advice, yes. The problem is, when I'm sitting in front of the laptop in that office with that bird waving at me from the tree outside that office window... I get the familiar gut-twisty feeling and I walk away. Because...?

Fear...maybe. Who wants to fail at something they want so badly? Not me. Who wants to spend hard-saved money on something you've anticipated for years only to discover it's actual use is as a really unwieldy door stop? Not me. Who wants to spend months churning out 150,000 words only to realize it would make a great Bezoar*? Not me. Who wants to stare at the bony hand on that tree outside that office window waving the Finger of Epic Fail?

...................................... ''/

Who thinks that you have to be under 20 years of age to be a whining emo brat-tard? not me...

*Ep 2.13 Grey's Anatomy. Also...a pretty darn funny word.