Writing in May – 1st week a bust…

We are now on week 2 of my month of writing in May and my first week went to heck in a hand basket…  I didn’t get but 2 short stories wrote, 1 blog post, and nothing else… Today I have to step back, shake myself off, and try again.  There is no way to make up for last week, but I can still complete my writing goals from today on.  That is the thing about dreams… You have to put in the work to take them from the dream stage to reality.  I could get all upset, and beat myself up over not making my goals, but instead of worrying about it, I have to stop and regroup.  See if I am really chasing the correct dream or did I just let life get in the way.  Sometimes you start down a road of what you believe your calling is, or your dream, and get halfway down the road and realize you have no desire to follow this path at all.  I don’t mean you are just tired, but you decide you have no desire at all to even do it.  Sometimes what we think are roadblocks and obstacles are really landmines we have laid ourselves to keep from doing what we really aren’t wanting to do to begin with.

This isn’t always the problem.  A lot of the time you really want to follow a certain dream, but life really does get in the way.  When that happens you can’t just stop, but rearrange things, make a daily schedule, do whatever you need to do to make sure you have some time every day to work on your dream.  If you only have 15 minutes then use that time to write a chapter, a drabble, or whatever you need to do.  If you are an artist in 15 minutes you could sketch a character, cut out a pattern, sew something, or at least get your ideas on paper so when you have more time you don’t have to think about what to do, as you have already made the blueprint to follow.  Sometimes I find it helpful to write down before I go to bed what I want to accomplish the next day, a question about how to proceed in a story I’m writing, or just for clarity in how to get through the next day.  When you write this down your subconscious will be working on the problem while you sleep and normally when you wake up you will have your answer, or an idea, or you even had a dream that showed you what to do.  This doesn’t always work, but you would be surprised how much clarity you can get when you do this.

The thing is, most of us do waste time every day on things that do not bring us closer to our goals, but just wastes time.  I admit my biggest bad habit is watching TV.  Once I start a show I have to see what happens.  I am going to sit there until the end, as I don’t want to spend the rest of the day or evening trying to figure out what happened.  I watched the finale of The Good Wife Sunday night.  I have been watching this show since episode one and was totally vested in how they were going to end the show.  They said fans would be happy with the ending.  They said things would be tied up and nothing left to the imagination.  Well they LIED to me… I still don’t understand the ending.  The only ending that really upset me more was the series finale of The Sopranos.  That ending still pisses me off.  I also hate it when they leave a series in a cliffhanger and then decide not to renew it, so here we are years later still wondering what happened… i.e. did they stay together, did she lose the baby, who did she pick, did they both die?  I mean I could go on for pages about the shows I watched to the last episode, got into the cliffhanger, and to this day never found out what happened.  This is a big problem when you have a writer’s or creative mind is you will mull over all types of endings and what could have happened and you are just never completely satisfied.

But getting back on track here… I am going to have to get myself back on track if I have any intention on becoming a writer who makes money from my words.  For those of you who are reading this, it is time you regroup and figure out what you are supposed to be doing in your life.  What makes you happy.  What makes you want to get out of bed every morning and get to work… Also, are you hanging onto a dream that if you really are honest with yourself was never your dream to begin with, it was just a way to make money, or your family said you should be this or that, or you just thought it sounded cool and decided that was your goal in life.  Take inventory on your desires.  If need be do a pros and cons list where you take a piece of paper and draw a line own the center.  One side you write pros and other side you write cons.  Once you did that honestly write down why you should follow this dream and why you should not.  Why you think it is right and why you think you made a mistake.  Once done take a minute and really look at what you wrote, as normally you will see the answer…. Till next time…