There are No Words

I decided to work on my Snow White retelling in August this summer. I thought, it will be between edits and before book launch. Perfect timing to knock out some of the scenes that had been filling my head.
There was only one problem.
I would sit at my computer, open the document, and stare at the screen. And then let myself be distracted by other things like Facebook or Pinterest or reading or even ... gasp ... cleaning the area around my chair.
It wasn't that I didn't know what should happen next. It was all very clear in my head. It wasn't that I didn't love the story. I did.
But everything else in my life--my jobs, my children, my messy house, the bills, the other little stressors of everything I had taken on--they all caught up with me. And they ruined my mind completely useless. Adding one more self-inflicted deadline was the the straw that broke my camel's back this summer.
And that was just it. I didn't have a deadline. I wasn't under contract. I wanted to write it partly because it was in my head and partly because I hope to get a contract. But it's not DUE anytime in the future yet. The only one putting this pressure on me to write it was me.
So, I stopped. As you can see above, I have 65 pages written. A great start. And I know what will happen in the next chapter and the next and several after that. But it doesn't have to be written right now. It can wait for another month when maybe things aren't quite so stressful. Or when my brain isn't over-stimulated from all the other stressors. And it will be written in the future. But not now.
Do you ever do that to yourself? Put pressure on to finish something that, in the scheme of things, doesn't have to be that high on your priority list? Do you ever think you have to focus on something that isn't as urgent as you're making it? Does it make it harder for you to complete it? It does for me!