I haven't been able to rekindle my writing streak over the last week. To be honest, I haven't done much of anything besides spending time with my wife and son, and going to work. What I've also been doing is thinking, and one of the conclusion I've come to is that I would probably be happier if I didn't want to be a writer.
Life would be a lot easier. I could devote more time to my family. I would probably be satisfied with where I am in my job. I'd be able to get a good night's sleep for once. Most of all, I wouldn't have that constant voice nagging me at the back of my skull. You could be writing now, instead of wasting your time. You could be doing something productive. Why aren't you? Why are you wasting time working/sleeping/gaming/eating/etc.?
There are two solutions, of course. The first is to abandon writing and just try to relax and enjoy life. It's tempting, but impossible. I have to be working on something, and I don't want my obituary to just say "Well, he sure did read a lot of comics." It's a condition that I have to live with, even though at times I wish that I didn't.
The second solution is to write more, which sounds simple. The trick is squeezing it into the cracks of my life. I get up, I go to work, I come home, I spend time with my family, and by the time I can write it's close to midnight and I'm operating on about four hours of sleep from the night before. Mental exhaustion and the act of creation don't mix well for me.
So that's where I am right now. No doubt I'll try to struggle through another week, squeezing out as many words as I can in the wee hours of the morning. Perhaps I'll do better, perhaps worse. Perhaps I need to stop obsessing over word-count, and just be glad that I'm making some progress.
OTHER TIME-WASTING ACTIVITIES
What I've Been Reading
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
What I've Been Watching
Game of Thrones season 4
Resurrection season 1
What I've Been Playing
The Game of Dungeons (aka dnd)
Showing posts with label Existential Despair. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Existential Despair. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
The Twelve Days of Listless
I haven't written anything for twelve days. When I last posted here, I was on a 17-day streak. I had written something every day, for 17 days in a row. It wasn't always something substantial, it wasn't always something good, but I was creating. Just two days after that I stopped, and I haven't started again.
I often have trouble pinpointing why I can't sustain a regular writing habit, but in this case it's not a mystery. I've been having some personal problems. They're not something I want to delve into on the blog, but I've been experiencing a down period. It's not depression; I'm perfectly functional in my day-to-day life, but even so I begin to wonder what is the point of writing anything.
The thing is, I've been perfectly capable of making my word count every day. There's no reason that I could not have done so, no reason that I haven't banged out three or four chapters over those twelve days. At some point I have to accept that not writing is an active choice. There will be times when I can't do so, and that's fine. But when I can, I should. Time to get my streak going again.
PROGRESS THIS WEEK:
Nothing. Nada. Nil. Diddly. Zip. Zilch. Zero.
Oh, wait. I did blog about PEDIT5, the earliest CRPG in existence. It's over at crpgadventures.blogspot.com. That counts, right?
OTHER TIME-WASTING ACTIVITIES:
What I've Been Watching:
Resurrection season 1 (it's sentimental nonsense, but my wife enjoys it, so...)
Game of Thrones season 4
What I've Been Playing:
The Dungeon (aka pedit5)
Rogue
I often have trouble pinpointing why I can't sustain a regular writing habit, but in this case it's not a mystery. I've been having some personal problems. They're not something I want to delve into on the blog, but I've been experiencing a down period. It's not depression; I'm perfectly functional in my day-to-day life, but even so I begin to wonder what is the point of writing anything.
The thing is, I've been perfectly capable of making my word count every day. There's no reason that I could not have done so, no reason that I haven't banged out three or four chapters over those twelve days. At some point I have to accept that not writing is an active choice. There will be times when I can't do so, and that's fine. But when I can, I should. Time to get my streak going again.
PROGRESS THIS WEEK:
Nothing. Nada. Nil. Diddly. Zip. Zilch. Zero.
Oh, wait. I did blog about PEDIT5, the earliest CRPG in existence. It's over at crpgadventures.blogspot.com. That counts, right?
OTHER TIME-WASTING ACTIVITIES:
What I've Been Reading:
The CRPG Addict blog by Chester BolingbrokeWhat I've Been Watching:
Resurrection season 1 (it's sentimental nonsense, but my wife enjoys it, so...)
Game of Thrones season 4
What I've Been Playing:
The Dungeon (aka pedit5)
Rogue
Monday, September 23, 2013
Do I Really Want to Be a Writer?
Is this what I really want?
That's the question I find myself asking right now. For a month or so after publishing Jack Manley I was awash with enthusiasm for writing. I had an Amazon store to maintain, an internet presence to establish, blogs to run and most importantly, books to write. This was going to by the focal point of my existence for the foreseeable future, and I was happy with that. I felt like I had found what I wanted to do with my life.
So why in the last fortnight has my productivity slowed to a crawl? Why am I watching Doctor Who, browsing message boards, playing Hearts and basically spending my spare time doing anything else except for writing? It's certainly not that I don't have the time. Yes, I have a full-time job and a family, but I can always find time to write. If I can play Hearts for three hours as I did on Friday night, there are no excuses.
So I find myself asking the question: do I really want to be a writer? The answer in my head is always yes, and yet my actions say the opposite, and I don't know why. It could be fear of failure. It could be the thought that my writing probably won't have any lasting value, so what's the point of doing it. It could just be plain laziness. I really don't know what the problem is.
What I do know is that this is a pattern. I go through cycles. Sometimes I feel like I need to experience everything the world has to offer, to constantly fill my brain with stories and songs and ideas, and to create as much as I can. Then there are times when I feel the futility of life, and the realisation that in a hundred years I and everyone I ever met will be gone and forgotten, and anything I accomplish with my life is probably pointless. Needless to say, those are not my most productive periods.
The good news is that I eventually snap out of my black moods, and get back to the business of living. Tonight I've been productive. Perhaps I just need to accept that this is how I am, and that there will be periods of productivity mixed with periods of procrastination. And to always answer the question I keep asking myself: hell yes, I want to be a writer.
WHAT ELSE I'M DOING
I'm on a big Edgar Rice Burroughs kick at the moment, devouring his Tarzan novels. I've read the first two, and they are much more interesting than I would have suspected. You would never see movie Tarzan wandering the streets of Paris in a depression, drinking absinthe and going to the opera. Or working as a French secret agent.
As a novelist, Burroughs is what I would charitably label "unpolished". His books are a structural mess, and his reliance on coincidence to move the plot forward borders on the absurd. Nevertheless, they work. They just barrel forwards with breathless prose, and if a certain plot twist doesn't make sense it doesn't matter, because Tarzan's about to snap a lion's neck with a full nelson. Burroughs is probably the earliest writer that I can read for pure pleasure, because his books are just packed with event. You never have to worry about slow patches in one of his books, that's for certain.
OTHER TIME-WASTING ACTIVITIES
What I've Been Reading
The Beasts of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs
About Time Vol. 2 by Tat Wood and Lawrence Miles
What I've Been Watching
Doctor Who: The Highlanders
Doctor Who: Revelation of the Daleks
Doctor Who: Remembrance of the Daleks
Iron Man 3
Looper
Oblivion
What I've Been Playing
Need for Speed: The Run on the Nintendo Wii
That's the question I find myself asking right now. For a month or so after publishing Jack Manley I was awash with enthusiasm for writing. I had an Amazon store to maintain, an internet presence to establish, blogs to run and most importantly, books to write. This was going to by the focal point of my existence for the foreseeable future, and I was happy with that. I felt like I had found what I wanted to do with my life.
So why in the last fortnight has my productivity slowed to a crawl? Why am I watching Doctor Who, browsing message boards, playing Hearts and basically spending my spare time doing anything else except for writing? It's certainly not that I don't have the time. Yes, I have a full-time job and a family, but I can always find time to write. If I can play Hearts for three hours as I did on Friday night, there are no excuses.
So I find myself asking the question: do I really want to be a writer? The answer in my head is always yes, and yet my actions say the opposite, and I don't know why. It could be fear of failure. It could be the thought that my writing probably won't have any lasting value, so what's the point of doing it. It could just be plain laziness. I really don't know what the problem is.
What I do know is that this is a pattern. I go through cycles. Sometimes I feel like I need to experience everything the world has to offer, to constantly fill my brain with stories and songs and ideas, and to create as much as I can. Then there are times when I feel the futility of life, and the realisation that in a hundred years I and everyone I ever met will be gone and forgotten, and anything I accomplish with my life is probably pointless. Needless to say, those are not my most productive periods.
The good news is that I eventually snap out of my black moods, and get back to the business of living. Tonight I've been productive. Perhaps I just need to accept that this is how I am, and that there will be periods of productivity mixed with periods of procrastination. And to always answer the question I keep asking myself: hell yes, I want to be a writer.
WHAT ELSE I'M DOING
I'm on a big Edgar Rice Burroughs kick at the moment, devouring his Tarzan novels. I've read the first two, and they are much more interesting than I would have suspected. You would never see movie Tarzan wandering the streets of Paris in a depression, drinking absinthe and going to the opera. Or working as a French secret agent.
As a novelist, Burroughs is what I would charitably label "unpolished". His books are a structural mess, and his reliance on coincidence to move the plot forward borders on the absurd. Nevertheless, they work. They just barrel forwards with breathless prose, and if a certain plot twist doesn't make sense it doesn't matter, because Tarzan's about to snap a lion's neck with a full nelson. Burroughs is probably the earliest writer that I can read for pure pleasure, because his books are just packed with event. You never have to worry about slow patches in one of his books, that's for certain.
OTHER TIME-WASTING ACTIVITIES
What I've Been Reading
The Beasts of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs
About Time Vol. 2 by Tat Wood and Lawrence Miles
What I've Been Watching
Doctor Who: The Highlanders
Doctor Who: Revelation of the Daleks
Doctor Who: Remembrance of the Daleks
Iron Man 3
Looper
Oblivion
What I've Been Playing
Need for Speed: The Run on the Nintendo Wii
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