My writing week 4 (7)

Hi all,

I hand no excuses last week for not writing. Well maybe. The humidity and constant temperature changes set my asthma off so I was feeling a bit run down most of the week. Still, after submitting my latest article to Divine on Monday, I had plenty of time to spend editing my novella.

But I can’t seem to edit; I just end up rewriting, changing nearly every word I wrote. I spent a fair bit of time on the novella last week, compared to previous weeks anyway, and ended at nearly the same place. I find myself checking what I rewrote the previous day and revising that and going back to the start to see how it flows since I made all those changes, and then rewriting that. So I am not getting anywhere.

But I don’t spend anywhere near enough time writing. When I do, I usually start getting involved right at the time I know I have to stop and do something more important. The task is always greener.

Goal Setting: Who Needs It?

I keep on reading blog posts about articles on goal setting and committing to writing, but I usually loose interest in reading them, because most of them are just repeating common sense.

Many of them stress the need to make writing your number one priority. But I have a few other number ones. Family. Exercise. Staying informed – a must, I think, for a science fiction writer. How else am I to theorise on future trends if I have no idea what the current situation is? And what about reading? But there do seem to be a lot of writers who don’t read much, especially the wannabes.

Why I Want to Write.

A few of the articles on writing goals suggest writing a list of why writing is important. Well here goes.

1. It gives me an interest.

Shit I better come up with some more essential than that.

2. I want to learn, to grow, to think, to use my brain.

There are many other ways I could do that.

3. I want to influence the way people think.

Come on, say it: I want to change the world.

4. I want to tell an original story.

That appears to be bloody hard to do.

5. I want to leave the reader with a lasting thought or idea.

I read too many stories that are like most action movies: forgotten the minute I leave the cinema. When looking through my bookshelves I see titles that I know I enjoyed reading, but have absolutely no idea what they were about.

I have no thoughts about becoming famous, and rarely think about being published. The ebook revolution is going to make becoming a published author mighty hard for the foreseeable future, unless I choose to self-publish a free ebook. This might have my sub-conscious asking: what is the point writing if no one will ever get the opportunity to read my stories?

6. Obviously it is important that I get paid for my writing.

I am currently paid, very good rates, to write an article a month for Divine magazine. Perhaps that has diminished some of my need to be paid for written fiction. Maybe in October when my contract expires, the desire to be paid might lead to increased motivation.

At the moment I just want to complete one of the various stories/novels I have written and get a positive response from at least a few people who read it.

A timeline to complete a novel or story might be handy, but recent experience has shown that any plans I make are usually totally smashed by other things in my life. So I am currently reluctant to make plans. I prefer to just wander along and hope one day I finally finish a story.

Who knows, maybe I am just in throes of deciding whether to just give up. Maybe my subconscious has decided it is all too hard to succeed or maybe I am just losing interest in writing fiction. But then I will be out walking, checking out how much the creek’s waters have risen in the past few days, and suddenly ideas and descriptions and sentences will come flooding into my head. Some of these thoughts will be for Divine articles, but others will be about the stories I am writing. I am particularly excited when they are about my novella. So there is a part of me that definitely wants to write.

This week I hope (I typed plan, but then deleted it) to write more.

Graham.