Right after I quit a job that had me working 70-80 hours a week at all hours of the day and night I vowed to myself that I would never again let a job get in the way of my life. Unfortunately, I am having the exact opposite problem right now. I'm letting life get in the way of a potential job.
I was doing so well before the move. I'd get several hours of writing done almost every day and not spend so much time distracted by other things. But this move, everything that needs to be done with the house, and the bout of depression I went through this past winter seem to have sapped what little willpower I have. I spend too much time flitting between websites, wandering around the house cleaning or just staring in dismay at the mess, and occasionally poking at these rewrites.
In the last few weeks I've managed to add another 5k words and tweak the first dozen chapters (two and a half of them today), but I feel like I should be going faster. I look at the speed of some professional authors in the urban fantasy genre and I know in my heart that I'll never be successful if I can't pick up my writing/editing pace. I'm just not sure how to do that and it is so discouraging.
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David Foster Wallace, an author who's no longer with us, but whom I have immense respect for, once said something in an interview that I think a lot of authors can relate to (it's just a few seconds, and only mentioned in passing). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLPStHVi0SI
ReplyDeleteSkip ahead to 3:30 if you want to hear it, but basically he was asked about his writing and he said, "I spend about an hour a day writing, and 8 hours a day biting my knuckle and worrying about not writing."
I have good days and bad days when I write, and those bad days I do exactly what David Foster Wallace said, worry about not writing.
My point is, hang in there. Successful authors have gone through similar bouts of both frustration with lack of producing words, and depression at feeling inadequate.
Good luck!
Thanks for this link and the encouraging words. :)
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