Struggles
I’ve written already about my struggles with motivation, how inspiration can become almost overwhelming one moment and disappear entirely the next. This is something I am constantly fighting, but it is not the only struggle.
Yesterday was a down day. I awoke full of, if not vim then vigour, and set out a plan for the day; to write at least another few entries for an ongoing project, to start the drafting process for previous entries, to contact a potential new client and to fit in some other miscellaneous writings as well. All this would be shaped around a gym visit, something which, although difficult to get rolling, usually provides me with enough endorphin fueled eagerness to overcome any motivational problems.
I also chose to listen to several new podcasts on writing during my session. I have become an avid digestor of the medium and my phone probably contains more megabytes of folks talking video games and movies than it does of actual music. I had never really thought to download any related to my intended career however, and so attempted to remedy this toot suite.
And it was good initially. The first ‘cast, encouragingly named ‘I Should Be Writing” broached a topic I know all too well, crippling fear. Hearing a professional writer state clearly and frankly that this remains a problem even for those with storied careers was both inspiring and thought-provoking.
The second podcast was a different story however. Lacking any particular starting point (the first episode being a good minute scrawl down the show’s feed) I downloaded an episode of The Story Grid podcast called “Finishing your first draft.” This is an issue I am intimately aware of, and hoped the show would provide some professional insight into getting over that first hurdle.
Unfortunately, it was less a cathartic examination of familial problems of motivation and more a deep discussion on the relationship between writer and editor. In fact, the show seemed more geared towards aspiring editors than writers. It was not all that different from walking into an advanced mathematics class when your understating of matrices involves Keanu Reeves wearing leather pants.
It was overwhelming, and emasculating. Concepts I had no knowledge of were bandied around like they were common knowledge and the process of acquiring an editor and agent were dismissed as mere trivialities that surely anyone with an ounce of talent would find little difficulty with. It was, in short, not the show for me.
This combined with a particularly dispiriting gym session left my plan for the day in tatters. I felt no desire to write anything at all, let alone to redraft previous writings. I had little motivation to do anything, truth be told, and I gave into this compunction. And I felt terrible. I slept terribly that night. I woke this morning feeling terrible having dreamt mainly of loose teeth and bureaucracy.
I have learnt before that I do not necessarily respond well to being overwhelmed, or feeling out of my depth. This runs especially true when it concerns the one thing I believe I may become good at, that being writing. To be reminded of my beginner’s status, to find myself ogling in confusion as industry terminology and methodology flies over my head, led to nothing but a day of procrastination and self recrimination.
This is the ninth entry in my ongoing series of freewritten doodlings. The rational behind this is here: https://goo.gl/hi9Ub7
