Tuesday, January 19, 2016

It's All About the Writing (or, My Insecurities For All to Read)

For the first time in ten years, since I've been writing, I'm finding myself unable to focus on the project at hand. Which is odd because my head and heart aren't as encumbered as they've been the past three years, so I should have all this room to write.

In part, it's my day job. I'm a professor, so I don't really have a job I can clock out of at 5 and then go home, kick back my feet, and suck down a glass of Cabernet. It's a job which I mostly love but which sucks me dry at times.

But even so, I should be able to get into my writing when that blasted alarm clock blares at 5:30 am. I DO get up, but even as I walk down the stairs telling myself to open word and not gmail, email, facebook, or that blasted twitter, I still do exactly that. Minutes pass, my hour goes, and I might have half-heartedly put in edits for a couple of pages.

I think the major reason I'm not into writing, though, is that I have two many projects. I have two books, finished, that need homes. I am pitching them, and this also seems to suck me dry--the tedium of researching agents, the tedium of writing query letters, the fear galloping ahead of me that these books will never reach the world, that I'm a hack, I'm wasting my time with this 'hobby'. The rejections slowly roll in, usually on a Friday afternoon (ever notice the timing of declines, fellow writers?), usually with some form of personalization but always with the latest market lingo, "I didn't connect with the writing the way I'd hoped to." 

And then there's The Minister's Wife, which I have just picked up again after a year. This work is a Mess. A Very Big Mess, and as I poke through pieces I realize I need a thousand pages to tell this story, it is too big, so what do I do? Change the story line? Reduce the POV characters? Make it into multiple projects with overlapping characters?

What really frustrates me is that all of the above isn't 'writing'. It's editing and revising, pitching and marketing, and I really feel I can't afford to stop these things because I need to get something published. And this need paralyzes me from writing new words, even though I have other ideas and projects lining up like jets on the runway waiting to take off.

I will plod along. This too shall pass. But I ache for more time to just write, I ache for some conclusion for the words I've already written. I ache for a modicum of validation that my writing is worthwhile, that it makes a difference.

How do you push past self-doubt? Any and all advice welcome. Peace...



6 comments:

  1. I had hoped you would never join the self-doubt club, but, welcome. The key is in this phrase: "I ache for a modicum of validation . . . ." Take heart from the many greats who went before you into this hell. Emily Dickinson, Pearl Buck, John Grisham, William Saroyan, Gertrude Stein (can't imagine she suffered a second of self doubt, though she waited 22 years to get published), J.K. Rowling, etc., etc. Google "50 Iconic Writers Who Were Repeatedly Rejected." Now that I've found the list, I think I'll add a daily reading of it to my meditation time.

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    1. Thank you friend for your optimistic message. And I will borrow your idea of adding this list of 'persisters' to my meditation! Keep writing, keep breathing, and peace...

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  2. Linda! I'm going through the same feelings and the same issues with editing stuff I've edited until I'm weary of it. Your writing does matter. I hope you find the way back in to The Minister's Wife.

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    1. Back at you Chris. I think this is a disease that afflicts most of us at some time, I'd just thought (hoped?) I was immune. I was arranging books on my shelves during our little snow storm here and refound Terri O -- think I'll read it again! Peace...

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  3. Linda, I'm just rekindling my writing and really feel what your going through. I wish you the best. Glad to see you're still here writing and blogging.

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    1. Trixie! Funny how writing never really leaves you... I wish yiou the best. Enjoy the new words, and keep on keeping on. Peace...

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