In January, I wrote this:
The thing is, no matter what people tell you, no matter what you do, you might not succeed.
Everyone out there telling you how to succeed–Just keep submitting to corporate publishers or agents! Persistence is the key! Stay in one lane! Write to market!–is either suffering from survivor’s bias or spouting what the survivors have told them because they do believe in fairies, they do believe in fairies, they do, they do, they do believe in fairies.
Well, I don’t.
So, I’ve decided to give up.
Hold your panties, there, I’m not giving up on writing. In fact, from your perspective, I’ll bet nothing is going to change at all.
What I’m giving up on is the nagging and the guilt and the frustration–all of these things are coming from inside of my own head and I’m sick of them. If I don’t feel like writing fiction, I’m not going to do it. That’s all there is to it. But lucky for me, I do often feel like it, so I’ll probably produce the same amount as usual. I’m just not going to beat myself up for sewing instead.
I made a list of all the things I want to do–the things that make me happy. Writing, Puzzle Books, Sewing, Photography, Cooking, Online Classes, & Crocheting/Knitting.
Those are the things I like to do. And I’m not going to push any of them aside anymore trying to make myself a successful author. I’m just going to be me.
You know what they say about best laid plans…
I must have been pretty open about my frustration with writing because this whole idea of just doing other stuff and not feeling guilty about it led to a pretty big fight with my husband. And we don’t really fight. We’re fumers. Fume and breathe, fume and breathe, and eventually everything goes back to normal.
But after several months of fuming and bickering and then a nice real fight, I have decided that I’m nuts.
When I said that from your perspective nothing would change, I meant that I had already been at a low point for at least a couple of years and I wasn’t really writing much, anyway. And that just wasn’t working for me. I’d decided to give up worrying about it.
Well, here it is July and giving up worrying wasn’t working for me, either. So, I’m going back to writing full time. I’m not completely sure I ever really wrote full time. Even when I had that office space downtown. But I’m determined to do it this time.
I have such a discipline problem it’s hilarious.
Well, here’s to trying…
