The Reason for My Hiatus

A few months back, I decided to go on hiatus. I didn’t write, think about writing, do author things, or anything like that. I came back to do NaNoWriMo (which I’ll talk about in a future post), and now am back on course.

But what caused all of this? Funny story, sort of.

For a few weeks before my hiatus I worked with a guy who was big into rap music, and wrote his own lyrics, put them to music, etc. Over the course of him explaining how he works and his success and all that business, he revealed to me that all of his backing tracks, rhythms, and music were all made by someone else and he simply paid for the rights to use them and monetize them. Not going to lie, here, folks, but that blew my mind. Why?

Well, I was under the impression that he did it all himself. But the guy puts out (easily) a song/week or an album/month. Prodigious, I know, and I was kind of impressed until he told me that he only wrote the lyrics and recorded himself. Which lead me to think about the aspects of quantity over quality.

And then I started to think about my own pacing. How I work. How I do what I do.

He was all gung-ho about promoting himself (sometimes stretching the truth miles longer than it should) where I really wasn’t. It had become a back burner kind of thing to me.

So I took some time to think about how I was doing this. Why I was doing this. Was I thinking too much of my own success? Was I thinking too little of what I’ve done? Was I being too hard on myself?

And I’ll admit. I was very close to walking away. Just quietly going out and never returning to writing. What was I really accomplishing with my time and energy?

It didn’t seem like much until I stopped thinking about what I could be and starting thinking about what I should be. This really isn’t a career for me. It’s for fun and, hell, if I make money - great - if not - pbt.

Somewhere along the way I started taking myself too seriously in regards to what I’m doing. In doing so, I created a beast of burden for myself that dragged me down into the depths. For all its worth, I’m writing about fantasy critters pooping glitter and the like. How seriously should I even be taking myself? Really. Think about it.

After thinking about it that whole month I was on hiatus I came to the conclusion that I’m going to do whatever I wanted at the moment. Writing a book that serves as my love letter to the Shin Megami Tensei/Persona series with demonic possessions and everything else? Sure, why not?

(An additional thought: Part of the problem too was having too many works finished but not working. Un-working, if you will, and me not having a solution to fixing them. I think I do now, but no promises.)

In any case, I did NaNoWriMo. Nothing too interesting to report other than I completed it and, for once, I am definitely willing to admit the first draft is an absolute mess. Too bloated, too end-heavy. My usual level of work.

And you know what?
It’s fine. I can fix it. I can go back to it when I’m ready and rework it so it is not the mess that is it now.
I can do this.