What the hell is wrong with me? I go back and read my own posts circa November and I see how determined and motivated I was to write. And how I vowed to keep it up until I was done with my rough draft. Fast forward to present and what have I been doing for the last two months since my last writer's group meeting had me motivated to polish three chapters of my NaNo writing for submission? Nada. Zilch. Nothin'. Well, not really - the last two days I finally got off my lazy ass and started my late night writing sessions again and have a whole chapter to show for it.
Yes, I might be PMS'ing... why do you ask?
Every once in a while I get down on myself like this and rant and rave to Hubby who calmly reminds me about all the things that I do in addition to writing. Like a forty-hour a week job, twenty-hours a week of being on-call after hours, our two kids I'm basically raising by myself while he works in the evenings, training for another Ragnar in June, etc, etc. And that most of the people I'm comparing myself to don't have jobs other than being Moms. I get this and I understand that I'm being hard on myself but that doesn't stop me from going to this place when I feel overwhelmed by trying to drive myself to accomplish everything I want out of life. Being an overachiever has its costs - don't let anyone tell you any different.
Thank god for my writer's group who have agreed collectively to hold ourselves to producing writing this year. They and are keeping me honest by demanding new material to read and critique every couple of months. If it weren't for them, "tomorrow" would always be when I was planning on writing and I wouldn't have that shiny new chapter of "showing" in place of the three sentences of "telling" that was there before.
This post is also driven by the fact that I got to hang out with some old friends who we haven't seen in about five years this past weekend. One of the women, who I've always looked up to and admired, shyly tells me that she's been writing fan fiction and got so obsessed with writing that she's also written a novel. IN. THREE. MONTHS. I wanted to shout 'Are you fucking kidding me?!' at her and throw my napkin down in a fit of anger then stomp off to anywhere else to wallow in the fact that it's taken me years and I don't have a single completed draft to show for it. Instead I told her how amazing that was and gushed about how I couldn't wait to read it because that's what you do when other people do the things that you want to do and haven't yet. There is a silver lining. I found out that one of our mutual friends is an editor so when I have a completed manuscript I know where to go for the next step and it will be someone I trust. Plus my competitive nature has kicked into full gear which helps drive my late night writing sessions as well now.
If you need me, I'll be brewing pots of coffee and depriving myself of sleep in pursuit of this crazy dream!
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