There's a reason for today's post, besides the fact that I hear that question pretty often. The answer is both simple and complex.
First of all, I've been sick for the last two months and counting. No, it's not the Covid virus, I had a bout with some sort of food poisoning on or before Thanksgiving morning. While that is long gone, it left me with ongoing intestinal issues that have begun to rule my life. This consists of chronic sudden diarrhea with nasty cramping, some nausea and stomach pain, and an inability to eat anything heavy, dairy, fibrous, acidic, greasy/oily, along with many vegetables and fruits—especially raw. I'm stuck with bland foods in small quantities. I've been tested for just about every known toxin under the sun, and all came back negative. I can't leave the house and go somewhere that I won't have access to a bathroom immediately on short notice. No way to predict when this thing will flare up and I'm still occasionally finding foods that are at least temporarily off limits. Even my decaf coffee with a non-dairy creamer and my beloved dark chocolate upset me. Yeah, this sucks!
This is on top of my usual issues with mobility due to advanced arthritis that have left me hobbling with a cane for the last several years. The pain and stiffness of that in the affected areas is a constant issue that I deal with daily also. I have medication for it, but it only knocks it down to a level I can live with. It's widespread for me, all the major and many smaller joints as well as my entire spine. I do whatever I have to in order to control it. Add on the other more current issue and that's a recipe for curling up in bed and feeling sorry for myself. Can you blame me?
Well, I can't afford to do that. First of all, I do have family who want to see me, and while I may not always be great company, I do my best to remain part of their lives. And I am a writer, I have books and other projects I'm working on, and want to make headway in. It's not just my commitment to publishers and fans speaking here, though that is important to me. I need this writing time to take the focus off what's going haywire in my life and the world around us so that I don't dwell too heavily on all that. That's a slippery slope that leads to depression and while I have my moments, I've learned to combat it with doing something positive and creative—like writing. Plus, in order to remain relevant in my career niche and grow my fan base, I need to put material out regularly. To do that you have to actually write and not just think about it.
I'll admit it's been hard lately. Some days I just feel so crummy I don't get a whole lot done. Yet I still sit myself down at the desk and do whatever I can. Every word on the page moves the story forward and leads to other new ideas. I've always been a writer who has more than one project going at a time so I can toggle back and forth between them if I feel I'm getting stale. That saves me from what everyone calls 'writer's block'—where you stare at a page and have nowhere to go with the next line or paragraph. For me, I average 3 days on most projects before switching to another, but I will switch out sooner or later depending on my mood. The idea is to write something, not give up on writing altogether. Like falling off a bicycle or a horse, I've got to get back up and write again to avoid that woo-woo fear that builds up, telling me that I can't do this, it's too hard and I'm not good at it. Yeah, even after 20 books in print, plus over a half dozen more awaiting a slot and quite a few short stories, I still have those days where I doubt myself. I'm human, not a machine.
One of the things that seems to help me commit to writing when things are rotten around me is making myself accountable. I post an almost daily stat of my writing progress on social media, mainly Facebook and Twitter, where I have followings. I also belong to a small but very supportive online group that meets regularly to read what we're working on to one another. The support and feedback are wonderful. I've had this blog for a while but over the last year or so I have made much more effort to keep it updated. I have a little more time on my hands now, so I can spare a weekend afternoon for blogging. Sometimes just talking about writing, makes the struggle to actually get something done much easier. When I'm really frustrated, I might chat with a writer friend, send an email, or blog. Usually within the course of airing that grievance, I somehow manage to work it out. This is why I tell potential writers, find your tribe, and listen as well as share. We all face the same issues with writing, though our lives outside of banging keyboards to make stories might be very different indeed. It's the rest of life that often seems to get in the way. Putting my current health issues into perspective by listening to what others are going through in order to gain writing time makes me realize that in some ways I'm more fortunate than my peers. Many of us are denied time to focus on a creative endeavor that could become a career because we have 9-5 jobs, extremely debilitating circumstances, families to care for, and bills to pay. Yes, those things must take priority. That's incentive for me to keep going as well.
In the end I guess it's just plain stubborness for me. I spent a lot of my life caring or working for others. Writing is something I chose just for me, and it does work well with my rather laid-back and introverted lifestyle and current disability status. I enjoy it immensely, because it gives me the chance to be creative and actually get paid something for it. So I can't afford to collapse myself into my own woes and not write, because readers will move on. Whether it's 50 words or 5,000, what I get done on a regular basis does add up over time. It's that persistence that pays off. I don't find time to write, I make it wherever I can. I use that time wisely, and get as much done as I'm able to. Along the way, I leave the world and all the problems in it behind while I'm immersed in one of my own design. There is a great feeling of satisfaction that comes at the end of each writing session, when you know you've gotten something accomplished that most people would never be able to convince themselves to tackle. When a project is finished and turned in, you've hit another milestone. I keep my focus on that, because it will bring me back to the desk day after day.
So there's no magic to motivation really. It's a mindset. You do it because you want the end result. It's harder when you have things that interfere with your ability to concentrate, but it can be done. I'm proof of that.
Write on,
~Nancy
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