Blog Post 5: Where’s My Wagon?
Throughout this blog so far I have addressed a lot of the issues a writer can run into and some strategies that can help you finish writing your manuscript. That’s all good and well for anyone who can maintain a routine, but what happens if you fall off the proverbial wagon? How do you reconcile the loss of productivity, how to you get back into the swing of things and most importantly, how do you figure yourself for slipping up? We’ll get into that in just a moment, but first let me address my own absence; for you see this post is in actuality a confessional. I meant to post again a number of weeks ago now, and haven’t really been able to come back to it until now.
If you are like me and are some flavor of neurodivergent, or just have a lot going on in your life; maybe you have kids that demand a lot of your attention, maybe you are working multiple jobs trying to make ends meet, let’s face it most of us are busy. This can make maintaining a strict schedule really difficult, I have always had a hard time with routine and balancing time commitments so for me I have had to adjust my expectations for my writing a lot. So I’ve said before that committing to writing every day is a great way to reach that hallowed summit of a complete manuscript, but what do you do if you find that you just cannot keep it up?
Well first step is remember that you are a human being, we all make mistakes, we all fall short at times, this is not a failing or fault in you, it is just how we are. Accepting that you will have to constantly readjusting your schedules, your routines, deadlines, and your expectations is just part and parcel for being a part of our species. It is difficult to find that balance, and when we fail to do so you might feel like you have let yourself down, or others, but hilariously as keeps being pointed out to me by my friends, at least you are still finishing your work faster than G.R.R. Martin.
All jokes aside, you are going to experience setbacks, failures, you are likely going to miss deadlines, or miss out on opportunities throughout your process and learning to accept that reality will keep you from succumbing to the despair of those moments. In many ways I think some of the most important tools I have learned over the years to keep myself writing have a lot more to do with managing my own mind and my emotions more than techniques that apply to the writing process itself. Forgiveness is key if like me you struggle a lot with guilt, it can weigh heavily on you and not only does it not help you overcome the obstacles before you, it is a massive motivation killer.
Keeping up with your writing is a constantly fight against the pressures both internal and external that you will feel that make you believe that you should stop. If you think about it narratively the antagonist to any writer is giving up, despair is an insidious villain who convinces you to stop fighting them. Never give in! If that means accepting that you will likely never make most of your deadlines, or that you take days, or weeks away from your writing, than so be it. Accept it, move with it, get back in the saddle and write again. If its been awhile since you’ve written anything, than do it right now! Seriously go write some words, don’t set a goal, don’t force yourself to work on any particular scene, just write something.
When you get stuck its often not a lack of ideas that’s holding you back, but instead some invisible deterring force that resists your motivation to move forward. Giving yourself as much forgiveness, and flexibility will allow you to keep going on the long marathon that is writing a novel. There isn’t anything you can do about the past, what’s gone is gone, but that is never a reason to give up on the future. Do not wait for the inevitable passing of time to arrive, forge your future today. So dust off that old stack of papers, put a new ribbon in your type writer, or open that word processor and get back to it! Your can reach your dream one step, one word at a time as long as you never stop.