Victim Writing Excuses

I'm back to The Writer's Idea Book by Jack Heffron.  Heffron writes about some of the obstacles that keep us from being creative and keep us from producing the writing that we want.  Here's an excerpt and a prompt from Chapter 2:

All of us are, at times in our lives, victims.  Life can be cruel.  And we use the role of victim to stop being creative.  We give up control of our creative selves because

• our families don't understand or appreciate us.  
• our bosses are demanding and fill our lives with stress.
• our children are demanding and will our lives with stress.
• our finances are a mess.
• our mates are insensitive to our needs for space to create.
• our cars refuse to run properly.
• our neighborhoods are noisy and overrun with children. 

...The Victim makes some valid points.  The key is taking back the power....  Stop making your lack of a creative life the fault of someone or something other than yourself.  Any or all of the reasons on the list above might be true for you....

PROMPT: List the most common and frequent reasons you give for not spending enough time being creative.  Next to each entry on the list, note who is in control of that situation.  Now write a short plan for taking back control.  It may require some tough admissions and a little creativity, but you're taking the first step toward opening your creative side.

I am certainly guilty of this.  In the past couple of years, my work, home, and family have changed, and finding time and space to write is not as easy as it once was.  Unfortunately, I have blamed my situation instead of taking responsibility for what I can and making space for my creative work.

In talking to other writers, this can be easy to do--blame family, work, finances, and environment for our lack of creative life.  But these are just excuses.  If we are going to create, the excuses do not matter.