The writing process is a love-hate relationship for me. I love, love, love the writing when I’m in the zone, but I hate, hate, hate the wringing my guts out to stay ass in the chair and get to the zone. I have read Stephen King’s On Writing and agree whole-heartedly with pretty much every page. I DID put my desk in the corner and occluded the view so I could focus. Yeahhhh, the brain still wanders and the heart still needs coaxing to face the blank page.
Further, my mind seems to think that it is a game. I’d almost think there is a contest of wills going on, but it’s the same will, mine. I can fight for words. I can word-game for words. I can even back into words when I’m not looking…but those words having meaning or point to the tale I’m telling is questionable at best some days. However, as soon as I sit down to do something else, or say… SLEEP, the words and the arcs spew up and keep me staring at the ceiling. (Hence, the tablet by the bed).
So, I ask my fellow writers…HOW do you coax the defiant heart into writing when YOU say it’s time, not when the mind decides to weep words? What do you do to ‘train’ yourself to abide your writing time? I know the rote answers…I want the out of the box ones. š I think we all do.
I have been a plotting whirlwind, which in many ways I love because I know that it makes the writing part a snap, or should. I flubbed it a bit though and got really excited about a certain arc and started writing before the plotting was done…OHMYLORDS, don’t do this. Let me be your lesson…just don’t. I cannot enumerate how hard it is to get back into plotter mode and do what I KNOW must be done first after being excited and actually started on the writing. I think this is part of my problem right now, I’m out of sequence.
This is my dilemma. I need discipline. I know how to do this. I know why to do it, andĀ in the proper order…but I wanna do the fun part when I want to do the fun part. And with that statement, I have completely contradicted myself from my opening premise haven’t I? This post was originally titled “Defiant Heart” because that’s what I was feeling when I started…funny how sitting and typing it out has changed the perspective. It isn’t that my heart isn’t in it. It isn’t that my brain isn’t engaged…it is that I have allowed the loosey-goosey to prevail and treat my writing as my escape instead of as the career path I want and will achieve.
That’s really the road for the rubber I’m burning isn’t it? This thing…this writing thing, publishing thing, working to help others achieve this dream thing…this is a business. This is the job I want. I have treated it like it was going to jump up and do it for me because I wanted it. It’s not.
We started all well, fine, and good…with aĀ business model andĀ a plan. We started small, with the three of us here at Eclectic Bard, and it was great. I was running the business side and my partners were holding the writing side. A Triskelion in balance. This year, I decided to come out from behind the scenes and write too. I did not make a clear plan. I did not consider the myriad ramifications of doing it or what it meant to the business side. The imbalance is shrieking to be remedied. I think that is one piece of the challenge I’m having.
We also signed FOUR other authors to the houseĀ THIS year…two have debuted this 2015 Fall season, one will debut 2016 Spring, and the fourth is an Indie who decided to join us that I have the great privilege of working with to edit and polish stories she’s already written to re-release them bright and shiny under Eclectic Bard…the future’s so bright here, I am in awe of the road we are on.
I am also intimidated and apprehensive. I know we can do this. I have sworn it to myself every night for weeks now when I look at the long list of things undone at the end of the day that have rolled onto the list for the next day instead of being crossed off. I am thrilled for the journey, but terrified of the road block that I haven’t navigated yet. I haven’t even hit it yet and I’m partially defeated by worry that I won’t know the way.
I look at my writing and wonder what made me think I could. I think too long about the reasons I started and the reasons to stop now and focus instead on the editing, publishing and marketing side of the equation…and then I remember some things that my momĀ was fond of saying:
“A dream untried can only be a regret.”
“Start and Success don’t begin with the same letter by accident.”
“Quitters never win, and winners never quit.”
Guess I need to find some balance.Ā -Sav
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