Sometimes you just have to make the gesture
My paid work is draining so much of my creative energy. I’m all fine with that because I’m no longer hanging by a short hair over the abyss, worrying about how I’m going to feed my kids. That’s enough of a relief that I can’t let myself whine too much about the fact that I have so little left over for me at the moment, even if it is true and it’s making me feel like I have a logjam of words clogging my soul.
I do intend to get more of my own writing done, but every time I sit down to do it, I feel pulled in too many directions. I should write a blog post! I should work on the novel! I should work on the other novel! I should start that third novel that keeps knocking on my door in my dreams! What ever happened to the poetry?! And what about articles on gardening and food and pitching to local papers and magazines!
For a few days I’ve been asking myself what I want to do. I want to accomplish what I’ve wanted to do since I could write my name by myself on paper. I want to write fiction. I want to finish my fiction writing projects. I want to not feel like I have all of these other possibilities hanging out in the sidelines trying to get my attention. The articles thing I can just mentally put down and it’ll stay there in the corner like a good bad idea. But the blog. Man. I’ve been blogging for a decade and it’s like this other person out there who needs to be fed and clothed and taken for hair cuts and I frankly don’t enjoy her company at all any more.
So I put up a post stating that I’m taking a hiatus. I seriously doubt I’ll ever go back to it because I’m enjoying blogging over here so much more. Besides, I’m ready to channel what I know about food, family and gardening into my fiction. Maybe I should have taken the blog down entirely, but I’m one of those excruciatingly slow breaker-uppers some of you were talking about this morning or last night. Tiny steps.
Still, it was just the gesture I needed to put my stubborn subconscious on notice that enough is enough.
It’s time to finish the novel.
(Yep..that’s my brain dump first draft untouched manuscript open in Storyist. I’m going to hit post and get to work on it right now. Just you watch me.)
