I've been (yet again) reviewing my list of 'things to do'. And I've come to the conclusion that I've set myself up to fail. I don't know whether it's a hang up from previous employment where it was so target orientated there wasn't time to breathe, or, if it's because subconsciously I want to say 'Look How Busy I am!' and collapse in a heap. What I do know is that I've become so pole axed by the list of actions I'm actually not doing a lot at all. Zilch in fact. Browsing the internet, downloading programmes which I will probably never use and generally just wasting time. So how, I asked myself this morning, is that going to help me get any writing done? Well it isn't.The trouble is like many 'amateur' writers I look at the authors I admire and read about their non-stop writing habits and how they churn out hundreds of best sellers every year, month, week. Well, that's what it says in my head. I don't think it's actually true.
It's not about motivation either, because I'm naturally partial to writing, I do write everyday, but I don't particularly do anything constructive with my writing. Well, that's not true either, I do submit to competitions and markets, but I'm easily defeated by a rejection. So I thought I need to re-look at what I want to get done versus everything needs to be done and take little baby steps towards achieving them.
So my revised approach for the next month is to:
- Continue with daily journal - including my Monday Muses - as this gives me ideas for stories, characters and helps me 'write things out'.
- Revisit The Good Life stories and submit a couple to Writers Abroad for critique
- Edit synopsis and first three chapters of The Promise for submission to an agent
- Re-start my work on Morning Gift at 1000 words per week
- Continue to meet the challenge of four short story submissions per month
- Blog weekly on her and Joe Bloggs - signing up to do a daily blog is not one of my priority writing tasks
I feel better already!
Later...
