SquarePeg Books

What’s harder to do, coming up with your book title or writing the blurb?

Eww.

The blurb, definitely.

I don’t do elevator pitches well, and that’s essentially what it is.

Right.

So.

Uh…..I still have to gab for a bit, don’t I? (Damned 150 word minimum rule!)

Right.

So, just like a great many writers out there, I have a mental illness and this last summer was rough. Things are a little better now, but still uphill.

On the plus side, I’ve started writing again. Real Fluffy Stuff that may not see the light of the vast digital space that now makes up self-published works, but still. It’s writing.

And that’s important.

I’ve also been whittling down the things I have, the projects I thought would be awesome but, let’s be real, am I ever going to sit down and honestly work on them? This?–Maybe. That?–Probably not.

Going through my Honest Mess, as it were, began as a COVID coping mechanism back in March 2020. I finished a lot of things, but found I still had a lot more to do to truly clear out the SuperFund site that was my own personal Area 51.

But after 9 months of busting my butt on that little side quest, while I really did make a great deal of progress, the momentum died. Every time I’d get one thing done, I’d discover 5 more things to take it’s place. Why is it that the more I finish, the more there is to do?

Hence, the whittling down.

Whittling down has also helped me focus in on things a little bit more. Mind you, there’s still a lot of stuff that I could conceivably let go of to create more physical and mental space (and to be honest, there is still some resistance to letting some of it go), but it feels easier to breathe.

Easier to write, too, knowing that I don’t have all those other things to make progress on.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that refocusing on the main thing can be especially hard if you’ve spent so long looking at each thing individually and not the aggregate as the whole.

It’s also surprisingly painful. What is the most important thing for me? Writing. Will working on this project/having this non-writing concept and its physical pieces distract me from from writing?

A surprisingly large number of “Yes” answers to that second question.

It’s sad, in a way, too. There are so many things I would like to do, but how much time do I really have to do all of them? Where should my focus really be, after considering all my strengths and weaknesses?

At the end of the day. I have to shed the dead weight if I want to keep writing.

Check out the Insecure Writer’s Support Group to see more writers dish about their concerns, their solutions to various problems, or how to look at the impending holiday season without dread (hint: it helps to have a convenient excuse to NOT attend family functions “Oooohhh, I had to have a root canal the day before Thanksgiving so I think I’ll just stay home and binge watch cartoons with my dogs while hubby and the kids go to his mom’s house.”)