• An article about the New Aesthetic panel at SXSW that I will not read
• A plastic surgeon's website that I thought had really bad boob job photos
• A google map of an address that I needed 4 days ago
• 3 tabs of clothes retail shops
• 5 different blogging platforms open with posts at different levels of completion
• Gmail
• Google calendar
• A map to the Kartell Museum in Milan
• 2 sites with modern architecture
• 2 articles, including infographics, on why you shouldn't put two spaces after a period
• My own website 
• Twitter
• 3 Facebook tabs because I forget I have it open

I'm writing something personal today in an effort to facilitate my desire to do more personal writing next year, the year that is fast approaching. The year that is in fact peering over the fence with sly eyes, thinking about even maybe skipping a few days and getting here early. Oh the calendar will say January 1st, but in your mind, in your body, you'll swear it was still, say, December 28th. And you'll be frustrated, disillusioned and saddened that you don't have a few more days to eat sugar and meat and not work out and live it up until you force yourself into a year of resolutions and impossible-to-attain goals.

I'm stalling.

See, today's subject, concept or theme for this personal writing piece is "Personal Writing." Or more specifically, why I don't do more of it. I could write oodles about an interior space. I could write a novella about the wooden details of a leg on a Mid-Century Modern chair. But when it comes to just talking about myself, or my feelings, or anything other than work writing, I often fall flat.

I think it's perhaps I feel in my soul that I am a writer. That I want so desperately to be a writer. But I'm so terrified I might not actually be a writer. But Adrienne, you are a writer! you say. This is true. I have been blessed, truly blessed, to make money off of clicking keys on a keyboard and I really am grateful for that. I'm proud of the body of work that I've created.

But, like any creative, sensitive perfectionist, I in many ways don't really feel like I've written anything good at all. Or, more precisely, I don't feel like I've written as good as I know I can write. Notice I didn't write "think." I'm still at a dewy-eyed age where I feel like I know I can be the sort of writer/person I want to be. That deep down somewhere it's there. Just waiting to come out. That if I practice enough, one day, I'll look down at a sheet of paper of words I've written and I won't think it's just passable. That'll I'll actually like it. That I won't, after I've finished a draft, go back and erase all the witty things I wrote before publishing, fearing people won't get my humor.

There are two things in 2011 I came across that really resonated with me, that touch on this subject and my fears and apprehensions well. The first is a very recent blog post Luke Sullivan, the author of that advertising copywriting book "Hey Whipple, Squeeze This," had to say about talent and work and tastes:

"Study the masters. Immerse yourself in their work over and over again until you have it memorized. Surround yourself with people who are better than you are. Don’t waste time defending your early efforts. Just shut up and listen to your teachers. Stay humble. Stay hungry. Sooner or later you’ll produce something that looks like the work you’ve been studying and admiring. Like Ray Bradbury, one day you’ll lean back and realize, wow, all that work, it’s starting to pay off."

The second is a quote by Ira Glass, the host and producer of "This American Life" that went viral this year:

"What nobody tells people who are beginners — and I really wish someone had told this to me . . . is that all of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, and it’s just not that good...It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through."

So I'm going to keep studying the writing of people I love (local loves: Tolly Moseley and Lauren Modery). I'm going to write like a motherfucker. And I'm going to keep fighting my way through my own fears, disappointments and roadblocks. 2012, I'm coming for you (though please don't really come until January 1st).