This is my entry for the monthly Insecure Writer’s Support Group – a monthly opportunity for aspiring writers to have a whinge about the roadblocks we’ve came across while developing as a writer, and to offer each other support and advice. Click here for a full list of participants and to sign up. Unless you don’t want to, of course – no-one’s going to force you. Probably.
Life’s what happens when you’re busy making other plans.
On January 1st (and again on the 8th) I announced my plan to blog more often by blogging at a shorter length – around 300 words three times a week, then a longer blog, about 1,000 words, around once a week. That post on January 8th is the last post before this one, published on February 4th – which is slightly below the rate I’d planned.
I have tried to find the time to blog, and have about half a dozen ideas in my Drafts folder. While blogging isn’t my long-term ambition in itself, I do find that setting out to write something and getting it completed – however simple – is satisfying in a way that builds up and reinforces positive writing habits. As I’ve not completed a novel of my own – even a bad first novel, the type destined to end up in the bottom of a drawer somewhere – I think I could do with the practice.
Unfortunately, a large portion of my time the last month has been taken up with relatively mundane but stressful financial issues, plain old procrastination, and university work which has included analysing classic literature for , and making sense of the painful prose of Theodor Adorno. As a result, my blogging – both here and on other sites – has fallen down to absolute zero, and I’ve only had time to write a handful of tweets.
I’ve not totally stopped writing my own stuff over that time. I’m currently working on a half-written short story, and – most interestingly – I’ve thrown together a short script which is currently being prepared for filming (albeit on a less than blockbuster budget). I’ll go into a bit more depth on this in the next few days.
This blog was originally set up as a way of logging my slow, unsteady development towards being a more efficient writer. Hopefully, I will one day learn to keep up the habit on a regular basis.
SciFiFootball 
I’ve missed you!
Only a few weeks ago, I came to a similar realization about blogging, in that I discovered if I don’t set myself some kind of deadline (something, anything, posted almost every Sunday) I will procrastinate, edit, or talk myself out of putting words up there. So far –three times … I’ve been successful. It gets a little easier each time I do it. 🙂
I hope you find a way to work some posts in. Your writing always makes me smile.
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I’ve tried working to deadlines, they just seem to be another cause of stress as they approach. I think it’s just a matter of using them in the right way, hopefully I’m (very slowly) learning how to use them properly!
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I know the feeling. Life has also gotten in the way, and I haven’t been able to blog or write with as much frequency as I’d hoped. But we have to keep writing, even if it minds finding pockets of time during the day. The point is to find the time to post, and we’ll keep reading your posts.
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Life is where inspiration comes from, but it can be anarchic and unpredictable. If things were a LITTLE easier to predict, then settling into a writing routine may be easier.
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Life always gets in the way. It’s kind and wonderful like that. Hope you find the time to blog and write! Wishing you the best of luck.
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Thanks!
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I find it easier to find time to write fiction than making time to blog. Impressed that you managed to throw a script together. How long did that take?
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Surprisingly, it was actually really quick – I started jotting down a few notes in the afternoon, thought some things through on the bus home, and had a very rough ten minutes by midnight that night. The final script was polished off in about eight days.
A lot of the ideas – some thoughts on power dynamics as well as the morality of certain movie characters’ action, as well as some daft jokes – had been floating around in my head for a while.
The final script is about ten minutes long, I think the hardest part of it was sorting all that mess into a coherent plot, and fitting the action into such a tight space.
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Time is the killer of all the best intentions. Do what you can. Great post!
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Thanks. Life often seems like it’d be simpler if there were just a few more hours in the day!
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Hello from IWSG! Sometimes the rest of life just gets in the way. I like blogging and all but if I have to choose between writing something that may make me money some day or entertaining strangers for free, Imma choose my novel.
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True, I’d agree with you on that. It doesn’t seem to be an either or with me, more that my creative and creative energy gushes out or dries up all at once.
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