Striving for Accountability

Admittedly, I haven’t been writing “seriously” for very long. By which I mean I haven’t been writing with the intention of drafting a manuscript, selling/publishing it, and doing that over and over.

Yet, in the three years I’ve been writing, editing, and sporadically submitting my stories here and there, I’ve had nothing but positive feedback. Before you hate me, positive does not mean I haven’t received rejections, and I have not sent out a lot.

Nearly all of the rejections I’ve received have been personally written and bolstering. I’m always encouraged to keep submitting and writing. Even the writing workshops I submit to send me away with a reason to keep doing what I’m doing. Do you think that’s buoyed my spirits and made me itch to get my butt in my chair and write?

Yes, and no. Despite my best rationalizing and self-analyses, I’m still resisting just getting the writing done.

No one likes having their work rejected, but that’s the name of the writing game. I don’t dwell on it, and to say that I do even on a subconscious level would be making up excuses for not writing.

At WWC, while we were outside taking a break during our workshop, I told Kate that our first WWC was a revelatory experience for me. I was so inspired and excited to write. I had so many ideas that I was itching to get on paper. I started a few stories, picked one I felt I could go all the way with, figured out my world, outlined, and wrote quite a bit of it. Then I got stuck.

At our third WWC, all I could think about was why the hell I don’t have a manuscript written yet. Kate expressed similar feelings.

For me, it comes down to a lack of focus and a lack of a deadline -and this weird belief that I need to carve out solid blocks of time without interruptions to write instead of writing whenever I can, like others do. I’ve learned that I am a person that needs a driving impetus to complete a difficult task. I need accountability, dammit.

So Kate and I have set a date to finish at least a first draft of our current projects –January 5th, 2016. We’re competitive enough to goad each other into accomplishing this feat, and supportive enough to get each other through it. At least we hope so.

Wish us luck! We need it.

The post Striving for Accountability appeared first on Anxiety Ink.