A Rebellious Brain
I have a quirk.
It's a little brain quirk that I have known about for almost ten years now, but haven't figured out a work-around yet. The quirk has caused a bit of chaos in my life, derailed projects, and generally been a nuisance. It's not a major issue like a diagnosable mental disorder that is debilitating (how alliterative), but sometimes the struggle is real.
The quirk is, when I tell people my plans (or make too much plans) there's a 90% chance my brain decides I don't need to do those plans anymore.
An example: I come up with a story idea. I work on the story idea, build up some characters and conflict, maybe outline a little of the story arc, imagine the ending, maybe even start writing it. Someone asks me what I'm working on. I love talking about my writing, so I tell them the story. My brain decides that, okay, I've told the story, I don't have to write it anymore. The story gets shoved into my mountain of abandoned ideas.
Another example: I come up with a story idea. It's a really good idea, and I want to be successful in writing it, so I betray my pantser process and work on an outline. I get too in the weeds and outline the whole novel scene by scene. My brain decides, well I've written the book now, I don't have to write it now. The outline and story idea gets added to the mountain.
A final example: I post on my blog about my decision to put aside writing for now. My brain almost immediately goes, well I don't want to do that now, here is a whole idea for a new novel with conflict, setting, characters, and magic system; have fun writing!
This isn't to say, hey I'm back on the horse and galloping again, because while I did spend some of my work day planning (maybe a little too much planning, that's another aspect of the quirk), I'm still low on available energy and I'm still stuck in some bad attention-stealing habits that leave me no free time.
Whenever I realize this happens, I feel betrayed. How dare my brain believe I'm finished with something when I haven't even started. How dare my brain think I don't need to do this thing I want to do because I told someone about it. And I don't know what to do about it.