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My drug of choice is writing––writing, art, reading, inspiration, books, creativity, process, craft, blogging, grammar, linguistics, and did I mention writing?

Monday, May 15, 2017

Catch Up Week (Personal Update)

Image description: Writer looking a bit sad.

Raw unfettered shit- 80,042 (Last update 80,042) [Just this update- 0]     

Slightly polished turd-80,042 (Last update 59, 956)  [Just this update- 20,086] 

Superpolishedfragileshitstick- 34,889 

Yep. I know.

I'm looking right at it too.

Scowling at it really.

I don't have a lot of pithy wisdom to offer you today. My pith has suffered a robot uprising and is having its skulls crushed by T-1000's. I'm kind of feeling shitty and impostery and wondering why anyone had any faith at all in me since I'm clearly just selling snake oil, and not a real writer at all. I somehow managed to trick thousands of people and any second now one of them is going to do the Invasion of the Body Snatchers screech at me because they realize I'm a fraud.

If you want some sort of meta-lesson, just realize that sometimes even people who are paying the bills with their wordsmithing hit those moments–moments that it's easy to believe professional artist never has to struggle with. We do. And from the words of those who've hit success bellwethers I still only dream of, it never, ever goes away.

I haven't stopped writing every day, of course but blog posts have been falling behind, were going up last minute for a while, then late, then days late, and everything has been kind of decaying like a piece of fruit in a time lapse video. I also have been very dutifully doing something on this manuscript every day even if it's only to read over it, make a few cosmetic changes, and try to keep the characters in my mind so the whole project doesn't go stale. (Technically I've made a few changes, and there are a couple hundred more words, but I needed to acknowledge that I haven't even touched a new scene.)

I've stalled out and I haven't had the raw time I need to use my myriad of techniques to fire back up. I know I can get back to this, and part of that is because I take morning writing and the floating half hour seriously BECAUSE THEY WORK, and part of that is because Every. Single. Time. my schedule has opened up in the past five years, I end up quickly recovering my motivation and starting to pump out both fiction Work In Progress(WIP) progress and blog posts I'm happier about.

And if you ever think you're feeling guilty about not writing and maybe even realizing that the guilt itself is contributing to emotional and mental maelstrom of shit that's harshing your muse's squee and doing your creativity a heck, just know that it's so, so much worse when there's money involved that you were given in good faith. (An advance or in my case a Kickstarter.)

If you've been paying very, very close attention, or you've used my facebook updates to kind of patchwork together what's going on, you know that the past month has been busy and the past fortnight has been very busy. I think the overarching chaos is about to end–you know, just in time for six weeks of teaching junior high schoolers during the summer because that's not busy at ALL–but definitely this coming week looks blessedly normal. And while it may be telling that I'm nearly in tears at the heavenly sight of a 40 hour week, I am going to use this week to catch up.

I officially declare this week a catch up week. I'm going to catch up on blog posts that are half written, on emails, on guest bloggers who are patiently waiting for my replies, on menu tidying and admin work. (And away from the blog on the momentum of my book, my overdue "Inside Scoop" letter for my patreons, the rewards for the Kickstarter that need to start trickling in, my room that badly needs cleaning, and a pile of paperwork that I'm pretty sure if I don't get to, I'll simultaneously be kicked out of my home, lose health insurance, and start getting monthly cassette tapes from the Columbia Record Club.) It won't mean much to all of you, dear readers, except a wildly unconventional update schedule this week, but know that behind the scenes I am ON FIRE!

Let's see if we can't have a much more positive update in one week.

1 comment:

  1. Even when your writing about writing is about not writing, it's still beautiful writing. Barry on good sir, we're all behind you :)

    PS: 'Barry on' is a Scottish term. Keep calm and carry on is a less pleasing alternative...

    ReplyDelete