Saturday, April 30, 2011

Indecision and Other Obstacles

Lately I’ve been writing a lot. I’ve been writing posts for this blog, writing movie reviews and reflections for my movie blog and writing reviews for DVD Verdict. I’ve been watching movies and series for Verdict and my movie blog. I’ve been playing a few video games that captured my attention (Dragon Age why do I keep coming back!). But the one thing I haven’t been doing is working on my fiction.

Last year I planned to get editing done on two novels I completed. I started editing both and didn’t finish. Part of the problem was the home related and family related issues. I also burnout on editing. I do a lot of it at work too: one of the few nasty side effects of writing and editing procedure documents for a living. I just get sick of reading and rereading my own stuff. Needless to say both manuscripts are just sitting with red pens waiting to be worked on… for months.

Then there’s the constant issue of wanting to write new material. I’ve had several ideas over the last year that have been sitting in my head and not doing anyone a lick of good. So, what’s to be done?

First off, I love writing about movies. The movie blog proved it and I’ve been having a blast with it. Writing for Verdict is great, as I get more people reading my writing than ever before. But the time it takes to watch all those movies and series is considerable. While I’ve toned down my blog entries for my movie blog, I’m still finding it tough to juggle everything. And this blog has been running since 2007, and I’m loath to let it go, even though I’m finding it harder and harder to write interesting entries for it. Heck, I’m writing this one right now, because I didn’t have one in the wings.

But the bigger issue is the changing landscape of publishing. Used to be self-publishing was a suckers game. But with electronic publishing the game has changed and it’s quite possible to make some money and get some readers for your fiction if you know how to get it out there. I keep coming back to the idea of really getting my fiction rolling, but to do that I need to cut into my other writing. I need to stop getting sucked away into video games. I need to really dive into editing (the one element of writing I always flounder on). . I need to decide the path I really want to take.

The trick is actually doing it instead of writing about it.

Am I the only whiny writer out there? Anyone else struggling with their writing careers and their focus?

2 comments:

Rebel said...

No, I think this is something that every writer deals with, ever craft-person deals with. You start a project, you're enthusiastic about it, but then you get to a tough part and it's hard to power through - much easier to spend time and energy on a different project.

I keep thinking that I want to write a book but it keeps coming back to time. Am I willing to cut out other parts of my life in order to devote a couple hours to writing every single day? As of yet, it's just not happening.

Hang in there though.

Roman J. Martel said...

Thanks for the encouragement.

Obviously I've put this blog on hold for now. I'm thinking I might make the occasional update, dealing with writing specifically, but since I haven't actually written any fiction lately, I have nothing to add.

Still, I haven't fallen off my writing bandwagon. I've got plenty of reviews over at DVD Verdict and my movie blog gets updated at least once a week.