Conquering Writer's Guilt

One of the things I’ve been contemplating this past week has centered on why writers can’t stop themselves from writing.

Admit it. If you don’t write on a regular basis, you get cranky, unbalanced, and not pleasant to be around. Little things that have no import begin to tick you off for no real reason. In the end, you must take up paper and pen or keyboard and monitor to put something in writing, whether anyone else will ever read it or not.

Many of you are nodding, thinking back to when you were a youngster and creeping off to a corner where no one would find you for a while, in an effort to put your thoughts, ideas, and ponderings into a more permanent form.

Some of you, like me, were either teased about your use of words or discouraged in a more hurtful way. It wasn’t pleasant. You felt misunderstood, unworthy, and alone in a world that didn’t honor you. I remember those days well. By the time adulthood came along, you probably had no more belief in your abilities or writing dreams than anyone else had shown throughout your life.

I’ve never understood why those who are supposed to love us can’t give encouragement to a child’s dreams and aspirations. I’m at an age now where I know that I’ll never understand a person’s need to berate another rather than move toward understanding.

Whether we still hunker in corners for secret writing sessions or sit at desks and flaunt our right to express ourselves to the world, one aspect of a writer’s life tends to remain true; at least in my experience.

We all tend to feel guilty if we haven’t written anything on any given day. It doesn’t seem to matter how busy and cluttered with errands that day has been. What matters is the reality that we didn’t find at least fifteen minutes to put words down for use later.

Guilt seems to be built into the job description of most writers. You feel guilty if you’re running behind on a timeline, even if you’re the one who created the timeline. Pangs of guilt flutter around your head every time you think you haven’t spent enough time on research, editing, critiquing of other’s work, what-have-you.

Have you kept your presence fluid and immediate on your social networks and the media? Another source of guilt has come to roost on your head. Have you been keeping close enough email ties to your contacts? No? Well, you’d best get cracking. You could lose those contacts. They could be offended and never really be friends with you again.

You see what I’m talking about. Be honest. You’ve felt some, in not all, of these symptoms of a Writer’s Guilt. The cause is unknown. It lies so deep inside the psyche that few, if any, would find it without a bulldozer and other heavy equipment.

The only cure is striving for a regular dose of preventative. Write a long email to someone you’ve not contacted in a while. Apologize for the oversight--make no promises about doing better, since that leads to more guilt later—and be positive in your relating of doings in your life, what you’ve been working on, and how insanely chaotic your personal life has been. That will take care of that problem for now.

Edit an old story and get it submitted anywhere. It doesn’t matter where. It’s the submission that matters. Another symptom will be gone for the moment.

Continue with these types of firebreaks and soon the guilt will be controlled. You will be able to say “See, what I’ve done this week. I’ve gotten all of this done.”

Until the next time I feel guilty about neglecting this blog for another, have a great weekend and week to come.

Claudsy

Answers by the Bushel

A few days ago I posted about the confusion I felt concerning whether I could do this thing called writing in today’s publishing world without losing what was left of my mind. I got part of my answer last evening as I listened to two more class sessions on Author Summer School.

As I was listening to the experts, my mind filled with how each of their points pertained to me and what I could do both in strategy and platform without doing much more than I am already. The only thing I really needed to do was stop worrying so much about not getting more writing done and devote a short amount of time to putting what I really needed into place.

 I suddenly saw myself in my tiny rowboat, floundering with oars that weren’t quite gaining enough purchase in the water to propel me forward. It came to me that that was the problem I’d been having. It wasn’t that I was writing all the wrong stuff or not enough. Instead, the problem lay in my scattering all that writing as so many jetsams inefficiently onto the waters of potential publishing success. I was actually sabotaging myself by not taking the time to put together a working and effective plan of action for myself.

I realized that while I would lose a couple of weeks writing time, I would gain much more, including a renewed focus and a method for doing all the types of writing that I wanted to do. The key was to actually have separate platforms with separate foci.

I know. It sounds daunting, doesn’t it? But the way I envisioned it, the only daunting part was that initial learning curve for putting the plan into place and for keeping the different arenas separate on the net.

For example, I have this blog with its followers for children’s work and the occasional experimental piece of fun. I have my Wordpress blog for interviews, reviews, and commentaries of various types. I also have a brand new blog opening soon to replace my Positive-At-Tent-Ion website; a new blog that I believe will be better by far than the old site and that will be run like a small magazine.  God willing, my followers there will come over to the new one.

The social media portion of the equation will be put together in the next couple of weeks while I’m taking classes and building a large file of expert advice from all across the spectrum. I figure if I take the time now to do this, along with subbing out all the remaining work in my file cabinet, I have a shot of coming into September with a plan of daily action that will keep me motivated, productive, and moving forward with my writing career.

That’s where I am today; beginning to put together the plan. Making those decisions that force me to dedicate my focus, as well as time, to writing to the best of my ability while riding a marketing strategy toward the future.

I hope that others out there with this predicament can find hope in my trials and struggles. There are answers out there, if you ask the right questions and if you’re willing to accept opportunity when it’s offered. I just had another thought. This change is necessary for me because my writing grew beyond the fences that had previously held it. Will that happen again, if I take on another growth spurt?

Huh. If it does, I'll just have to adjust again. Practice makes... and all that.

Take care, all. Until later,

Claudsy

Re-examining One's Direction

For the past few days I’ve been taking some classes through Trissa Tismal’s Author’s Summer School Program. These were simul-cast over telephone/web.

The majority of the information given to the students was geared toward non-fiction, but easily converted over for fiction. Both traditional publishing and e-publishing were addressed in easy to digest ways to ensure that everyone would come away with valuable tools for their publishing future.

Much of the emphasis was that writing—if you want to do it for something other than a hobby—is a business and must be approached that way.

I have to admit that anyone writing--whether for books, articles, essays, etc.—this is especially true. Any writer who wants to make a living at writing through copy writing or book production must change their thinking processes to allow for office mentality.

It came as a big shock to me over a year ago when I came face to face with that reality. Every time I turned around, I was hearing the same thing. I heard it from fiction writers, screenwriters, essayists, journalists, travel writers, and copywriters. There was no escaping the reasoning behind that truth. There was no lark singing sweet songs for the Muse that may or may not bestow creative genius while I sat at the computer trying to decide what to write for the day.

I still don’t have to like that reality. I just have to find a way to live with it and organize my writing life in a way that makes use of it in the most efficient way possible.

That’s one of the big problems for me. I have enough projects on the boards to keep me very busy for the next year without developing any new ones. Each of them takes time to write, edit, polish, and market.

Hiding in the corners of the mind sits a wee concern called enjoyment. How does the writer gain enjoyment from the work while still viewing it as a business with schedules to meet, plans to develop, schmoozing to do on social media sites, etc.?  Can there be enjoyment within the process alongside all of the demands from the business?

As I sat listening to the experts talk about how much social media and its uses were necessary for a working writer, I pondered my ability to do what was necessary. I wondered if I had what it took to be the writer I want to be without having to become a slave to the changing face of the publishing world.

I can tell you that being an eclectic isn’t going to make the situation any easier. Each writer needs a platform. That’s been drilled into us all. When you write travel pieces, children’s stories/articles and hopefully books, along with social commentaries, op-ed pieces, memoir and essays, plus adult fiction, what kind of platform can you build that will work? Drop poetry into the mix and you have disaster waiting to claim the world.

Like everyone else, I want a life outside of writing. It might not happen, but one can hope. I want to be able to read books for enjoyment besides those I will do for reviews. I want to be able to do interviews for my Wordpress blog. On top of all that, I want to go out of the house on occasion to see if the rest of the world still exists and has something to show me that I can write about.

There you have my dilemma. How crowded does my daily schedule have to be to get everything into it? How much time do I have to shave off this hour or that one to allow for laundry (I can do poetry or reading then, too, during the drying cycle)? Can I make an outing a time for jotting down notes for that YA fantasy on the back burner?

If anyone has any suggestions for me on how to make scheduling work better than it’s been so far, let me know. If you have a way to cram more into a day without feeling as if deprivation of spirit is just around the corner, please, I implore you, tell me what it is. I’m counting on suggestions here, peeps. My present scheduling system isn’t working at all well anymore.

Do I really have to scale back what I want to be writing on in order to get the rest done?

Load me up with suggestions, sure-fire ways to excel, anything you have on hand will help. In return I will loan you my sure-fire ways to overload your desk while skipping joyfully down a path toward writing overload. Hey, fair is fair.

Until later,

Claudsy