Just Another Struggling Writer

I’ll admit it folks: I was pretty darn tempted to forgo blogging today (or this week, or even this month). After all, with no active freelance project to inform my writing needs for the next four or five weeks, what could I possibly have to talk about?

Well, as it happens, I’m still a working writer, even if I’m not “working” at the moment.

In fact, when I sat down with my journal this morning to outline how I would like to spend this non-working month, a surprising amount of writing related tasks came up.

For starters, my next pitch due date is September 6th. I’ve already determined that I’d like to do two pitches this quarter (three being too many and one not enough), which gives me two weeks (each) to put together and refine an idea into something sellable. Should be plenty of time, but I also wouldn’t be that surprised if I completely lost track of things and ended up with just a few days to throw things together.

Which is sort of the point I’m dwelling on here. It would be really easy for me to take a month long vacation from writing here. Spend my after day job hours loafing around playing video games or watching tv or all those lovely time wasting activities I do so dearly miss. But what good would that do me? Truly? None. I would only be putting myself in the unenviable position of having to get back into the habit of writing every day. Which, for me, a person who struggles mightily with habit formation and maintenance, would be… uh, shitty to say the least.

So I’ve got to keep after it. But I can’t expect two pitches to keep me occupied an entire month can I?

Which leads me the second big writing related task I want to tackle this month: figuring out what the hell personal project I want to try and tackle. I have so many ideas at so many different stages of development, and, truthfully, all of them and none of them feel like… the correct choice.

I’m sure there’s some analysis paralysis at play here. I would medal in the Overthinking Olympics. And I know that continuing to try and force it would only make it worse. But, with how much time and oxygen the freelancing gig has eaten up, I’m worried that if I don’t take this brief moment of downtime now to advance my personal writing, then those ideas will forever and always be on the back burner. And as much as I have loved this freelancing thing, my goals for my writing career extend far beyond it.

So that’s my motivation this week month. Sort through my feelings on each of these ideas I’ve got and figure out which one lies at the cross section of inspiration and aspiration. Then develop it. Nurture it. Prepare it. Outline it. And heckinf write it.

Oh, yeah. And I’d also like to finish this book I’ve been tryna read all summer.

Until next time friends.

Kerry Share

Twitter | Instagram | Ko-fi