The State of Writing

Now that you’ve gotten a glimpse of my start as an author, I thought I’d give you a little glimpse into my current state as an author.

First, I’m going to admit, it’s been a bit of a struggle to get much time writing as of late. But, a part of that is because I have so many different projects in motion at the moment. For instance, I’ve been working on being the social media mogul of our bakery. Sure, it might be a small part of my week, but it’s also a wholly different form of writing than I’m accustomed to. Second, I have a few plays which have been commissioned that I’ve been working on. I also have a few plays which were workshopped over the last few years that I’ve been putting some finishing touches on. And then there’s the fun mind-bending webseries I’ve been writing.

And there’s the books. I’ve actually got three different books in different levels of production at the moment. One is completely in the mostly-done-but-never-done-until-published mode, where I go through and make some changes from time to time as I come up with new ideas. Another one is in the brainstorming mode, where I’ve got 10,000 words written, but I’m still trying to figure out exactly how to do what I want to do with it. And then the other one is actually swimming along fairly well, but is the bottom of the barrel for what I actually put my focus on because it’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever tried to write.

In other words, as opposed to the days where I was focused on self-publishing, I have reached a point where I am creating for the sake of creating. And it’s pretty darn cool.

That’s not to mean that I’m not actually putting things out. My throughput might be a bit slower than it was at one point, but I was also getting a little exhausted with what I was making, not seeing the excitement from myself to continue working on them. That’s what led to Moonshine Monarchy being such a large departure from my previous works, as well as being something which took so dang long to get into an actual state I could consider complete. Because I don’t want to write just to write anymore. No, I want to write to challenge myself, to do things I haven’t done before, and to create things I think are truly unique, even from my own work.

And that’s been pretty awesome.

It’s also why I changed the title of this space a year or so ago from “Adam Oster, Adventure Novelist” to “Adam Oster, Unfocused Creative”. Because I don’t have one way in which I wish to express myself creatively any longer. I have so many. I’ve been making music, I’ve been drawing, I’ve been doing all of these things which truly allow me to challenge how I express myself across different mediums. Because the act of creation is what I absolutely love.

Would I like to make money? Sure. Would I focus on one particular craft if that’s where the money was? Yeah, with the caveat that I would still continue exploring these other items simply to keep testing my own limits.

But right now, since this isn’t my money-maker, and it really has become more of a hobby once again, I’m allowing the creativity to guide me. Which also means that if I’m in a bad mood, I don’t have to try putting my energy into the comedic projects I’m working on, or if I’m out of words, I don’t have to write. I’m allowing the muses to guide me a bit more than I have in a while.

And that has been fun.

In all honesty, the only thing that has me down about my current artistic situation, is that I don’t have more time to focus on it, which I guess will either have to wait until retirement, or if I can get someone to pay me for my efforts.

Either one is fine.

Or neither.

Just as long as I get to create. It’s been really nice to be in this headspace again.