Last updated on November 26, 2023
Susan does a lot to help me function, but it’s unreasonable for anyone, especially me, to expect her to read and respond to whatever I am scribbling or typing.
Susan is my wife, not my editor or co-author. Yes, we have worked together on the Tameri Guide for Writers, but not on specific projects.
I write alone, yes. In a burst of energy, I can write thousands of words. Once those words are written, however, I need a reviewer, an editor, an honest critic willing to ask the questions I overlooked.
Never discount the value of editors.
I’ve always known I get projects done with a collaborator or collaborators. Not co-authors, but people acting as those honest critics.
That’s one of the great things about writing scripts: actors and directors are more than willing to read a script and give feedback. Development is part of the process for stage and screen. Actors will tell you when a line stinks. Directors will tell you when the pacing fails to connect.
If often feels like Susan is the only adult person in my life, especially during this pandemic. I’ve talked a lot to one colleague in education, but nobody else with any regularity.
It’s ironic that I’m not social, but I need to sit down with someone and talk through my writing to get things done.
Some of the successful writers I have met pay for an editor, a dramaturg, or another form of collaborator.
I suppose that’d be an option if I had resources. In other words, if I had had some success, I could pay for the assistance for more success.
Personally, I’d rather work with a friend or colleague who has a genuine interest in my works and share in whatever rewards that might bring.
It’s not false modesty to state that I know I can write. What I can’t do is stay on track. That might be my autistic traits, my ADHD, or something else, but it haunts me.
My lack of productivity depresses me, and that’s not healthy.
What about the blog posts and published columns? Those are short. The columns have deadlines. It also doesn’t hurt that writing a monthly column is a paid gig. The blog posts are often what I write when I’m stalled out on something else, and many of the blog posts I start linger, unfinished for now.
It’s amazing how getting paid for meeting deadlines can motivate a writer. I’ve wondered how much that motivated the great serialized writers, such as Charles Dickens or Arthur Conan Doyle.
Even being a student helped me get projects done. The power of deadlines with consequences. How pitiful that consequences activate a laser-like focus on deadlines.
Artificial deadlines, self-imposed with no guaranteed payoff, have no motivational value for me. That’s sad.
I need to focus. I need to believe there is a payoff.
Most of my “down” moods relate to 1) not having a career; and 2) not finishing projects.
I’m trying desperately to focus on all the projects scattered about, physically and virtually. I have websites that date back to 1994 that I really, really want to update and expand. Manuscripts to finish. Plays and movies I’d love to produce.
To finish things would take months of solid focus on one or two things until those were completed (enough) to move on. Instead, I start and go full-speed for a few weeks until I’m derailed.
I fear leaving behind nothing but “what might have been” projects.
I create a writing schedule… it slips. I try to maintain focus on the podcast, or the blogs, or something else. I get overwhelmed, distracted, sidetracked by life.
Maybe I need a physical chore chart. Five writing goals per week. I ignore the digital lists. I tag things to do, and never quite get there. I have more than 100 blog posts started but not posted. I find a book, article, or something online and tag it for later. My Later folder has four years or more of ideas.
Even updating existing projects stalls out.
Thousands of old blog posts to migrate. Novels, plays, short stories, movie scripts, poetry collections. Projects stashed away in boxes and stored on my computer.
I started to work on an idea, and then realized I cannot do what I had envisioned. Changing the idea or moving on to a different version is difficult for me.
If I had a someone to nudge me along by reading and giving feedback – that might help. Setting my own deadlines hasn’t worked. It’s sad, but I fear I need some external motivation. Sort of like the National Novel Writing Month helps some people write a novel draft.
Unfortunately, I don’t have close friends, colleagues, or connections with whom I could move some of these projects forward.
It’s important to find supports and mentors before it’s too late to be productive.
Reaching out to friends and colleagues isn’t easy for me, but it is something I need to do more often. I want to complete things so I can feel better about myself and the projects.
I’m not going to leave only unfinished manuscripts and notebooks behind.
I am not giving up. I am a writer.