There’s thing in our heads called a brain. It’s crazy and it does a million things and once and somehow is at the core of who we perceive ourselves to be.

One of the things this brain does all the time is process potential future events.

This of course is a purely survivalist practice, as we once were animals living in the food chain. Now this process has become a part of things like when should I get onions and not wanting to go to some social obligation later and how hard it’s going to be to write that next scene I want to get right.

We all have expectations. For everything. Even if we try not to.

Expectations often do not match reality. Because expectations are just some scenarios we have made up in our heads-ones that often aren’t even strongly based on our past experiences but rather our hopes and fears.

For Example,

Expectation: Man, writing this next scene is going to be hard. There’s a lot of detail and content I want to impart in a compact amount of writing. What choices am I going to make for this character, for this reaction? I have to make sure the details line up with my greater goal for the story and the preceding and following plot.

Reality:  Sit down in my chair, open Scrivener. Catch up on where I am in the flow of the scene. Double check my outline to see major points. Start typing. Keep typing. It goes and goes. Hey, I already know all of these things that I wanted to do. I’ve had this in my head for days. This is pretty smooth.

Despite the fact that that is my experience sitting down to right 19 times out of 20, STILL sometimes I procrastinate sitting down to write, daunted by fear or laziness.

That’s because my brain is lying to me.

Expectations are crap. Get rid of them. And by that I mean, don’t let them control your actions, unless it’s controlling them for the better, of course. 😀

-Evan