Writing is Hard Work

Writing is hard work. But it really, honestly shouldn’t be.

I mean, yes, you should take the time to draft. And then there are revisions and edits. Critiquing. Proofing. It is a lot of work.

But if you’re staring at what you’re working on and your first thought is to go surfing the net, something’s wrong.

Art by Danger Dust

For the last week, I’ve been believing that something is wrong with ME. I’m procrastinating I’m making all the wrong choices. I’m depressed. The litany of excuses goes on and on.

And then I realized the problem. The piece I was working on, where the tension wasn’t quite there, the story wasn’t building like it ought to, all these things wrong with it…the piece didn’t fit. And what it didn’t fit was me.

I was trying to write to meet a submission call for an anthology. And the subject matter wasn’t quite my genre or passion but I wanted to try it. And this story was stopping me from doing everything. It was stopping me from editing my novel. It was stopping me from writing new novel scenes. It was stopping me from plotting a serial I wanted to plan, write, publish.

So I decided to drop it.

It took a few days to decide. You sink 4K into a project and you want to keep it going, keep it afloat. I like the characters, I do. I don’t have the research to support it. The deadline was looming. If I dropped it now, I wouldn’t make the call. I fought with the idea that if I didn’t make the call for that anthology, then my work would be for nothing.

But waking up and seeing it wasn’t working and it was really making things hard, that was worth more than I could really say. I am going on my edits now. Today, I dropped the shoulds and coulds and realized that if I’m going to edit and get ideas for the sequel, I might as well be writing them down, even if it’s not sold or committed anywhere.

I have time to do what makes me HAPPY. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to drown from something that’s dragging me down if it’s simply not a good fit.

Art by DangerDust