Productivity and dissatisfaction

It occurred to me recently that I rarely use this blog to talk about anything in particular so I figured I'd mention this now:

I kind of hate how my satisfaction is so tied in with the idea of productivity.

For years, I felt guilty if I wasn't working on ICoS when I had free time... I turned down plans on the weekends to hang out with friends because it was the only day that would work for Sonny and me to write, and if I got home tired from work and wanted to watch tv all night, even if I did so I felt frustrated by the time I went to sleep. As if I'd wasted precious time.

When ICoS was finally finished, I had two weeks of bliss in which those feelings weren't nagging me in the back of my mind all the time. I thought maybe it had simply been me interested in finishing the first long series I'd been involved in writing.

But in the last weekend, that nagging sense has returned. Only now, it's even more frustrating because I don't have a clear sense of what to do about it. At least before I always had a list of chapters to think about.

Also what's weird is for seven years I've found myself randomly thinking of plot ideas for ICoS, and now when I think about the series I either hit a blank when I realize the story ended, or I think of all sorts of ideas that I know can't really be written anymore. Either because it's past the point where it would have fit in the plot or because it would basically have to be part of another long, convoluted series, and that's not something either of us are interested in doing right now.

Also, I know I could write oneshot side stories or something but I don't... really want to. It's just that I get flashes of ideas and now I don't have a place to stick them anymore. It was so weird clearing all the notes off my whiteboards and collecting all the sticky notes scattering my workspace for years. I guess I just have to find a way to do that mentally as well.

I have some stories I planned to write on my own but I've always been a huge procrastinator whose writing (like pretty much everyone) is so tied into inspiration, so that sometimes even if I sit down with the intention of writing, I can't really get anywhere.

That hasn't actually been my problem lately. My problem has been I'm not really sure which project I want to do next because none of them are more interesting than the other to me right now, or necessarily that interesting at all. I get distracted and discouraged relatively easily, given that I'm generally pretty hard on myself, so it's also usually pretty easy for me to give up on things before I even begin. It's not that I would give up on a story, I'd just give up on bothering to work on it any time soon, or give up on the idea of ever sharing it, or give up on the idea of it being interesting, or anything else along those lines.

I get pretty listless pretty quickly.

But maybe that's why I tie in some sort of weird self-worth into productivity, because I know how lackadaisical I become and how easily it happens, so if I spend time without accomplishing something, no matter how small a goal, I feel like I wasted the entire day, or weekend, or whatever time period. It may just be a day yet I do this on many days. But then, I'm also the sort of person who really needs quiet weekends to recharge for the week.

I don't really have a solution for any of this, except I'm well aware that I should just write anyway, or research if I don't feel like writing, or write notes, or whatever other options there are out there (of which there are many). This conundrum is nothing new for me-- it's been happening for a long time with me and I'm sure it's exactly the same for many, many people out there.

Still, the weirdest part of it all is that this sense of dissatisfaction or restlessness comes pretty close on the heels of meeting two goals I've had for a long time that I really didn't think I'd be able to meet. Finishing a long series, and finishing a book before I was 30. I honestly thought a lot of the restlessness was tied into wanting to make sure I met those goals, but if I'm still feeling that way afterward, apparently I was mistaken.

The reason I posted about this at all is because it was an interesting case study for me in the context of my life: the ability to face an assumption (that the guilt of not writing was related to having a set goal and worrying it wouldn't be met) and find it to be incorrect, attributing the issue to my personality itself, apparently. Which is kind of annoying, when it gets right down to it, because that means this feeling will probably never leave.

Well, anyway. This was a completely uninteresting post I'm sure but I ended up feeling like working through the thoughts in my head.