Julie's "don't wanna work" challenge

Best laid plans of a hedgehog/deer

I had very good intentions when I set this thing up of course.  Write every day, because that's what writers do.  And while I'm just a wanna-be writer at the moment I'd like to be an actual writer so I was most definitely going to write every day.  Except of course I didn't.  In fact I haven't been on the site at all for almost a week, and when I was on it was just to read email and to see if anyone had read any of the old work I had posted on here.  My old work has already been called better than mediocre by at least one person I know so there's not a lot of fear involved with posting it on here. Especially since I haven't done anything to advertise the fact that I have work on here. While its fun when people come across my work by accident its scary to actually ASK to anyone to look at it. And I am not someone who does scary things, particularly not scary things that could also be embarrassing things.          


That is something I will never quite understand about American Idol, actually. (Here we go with the embarrassing part, now you know I watch American Idol.) These people who audition with no ability whatsoever absolutely blow my mind.  They get up in front of the judges and millions of TV viewers and attempt to sing with absolutely no fear--and no assurance that they'll be any good--and they ask for praise.  I would go so far as to say they DEMAND praise, and they are genuinely surprised when they are told that they are not going to Hollywood.  I have to watch these fearless and somewhat "pitchy" singers with a certain amount of admiration even as their antics (and often their outfits) are making my stomach churn with embarrassment that they are seemingly incapable of feeling. I could never, EVER do something like that because I don't do scary things, particularly not things that have the potential to be both scary AND embarrassing.  I freeze like a deer in the headlights when faced with something terrifying.          


  I'm thinking that description implies too much grace and actual fear for the kinds of things that cause me to freeze up.  Deer are beautiful, delicate creatures who freeze because while gracefully running through the trees they were overtaken by a car, aka death on wheels.  I'm more like a hedgehog or an armadillo ambling through life and curling myself into a ball at every possible threat including the imagined ones.  I don't start new things because I'm not sure how I'll continue them or how I'll keep up with them.  I don't apply for jobs because I hate the thought of being the new person and having to learn where everything is and who everyone is and how everything works.  I don't clean my house because I don't know where to start or how long it will take me to get done or where to put everything.  I don't go to the gym because I hate going by myself and maybe not knowing where something is or how something will work.  (And I thought Idol was the embarrassing part of this.)


The funny thing is, I used to be more of a deer than a hedgehog.  Once on a youth group float trip I jumped off a bluff into a creek.  In high school I was a girl who hugged people, A LOT.  In college I played in a band AND attempted to act in a play.  Somewhere along the way all that fearlessness got lost, and I got exceptionally good at curling myself into a ball for long periods of time.  I'm thinking maybe if I try to write every day I'll be able to get back to being a little more of a deer and a little less of a hedgehog.