Excuses, Excuses
Lately, I’ve been fighting the excuse monster — that insiduous little voice inside my head that whispers excuses for not writing. I’m too tired. I’m too busy. I have no ideas. The list goes on and on.
Now, there is a difference between a reason and an excuse. Sometimes, you really do have writer’s block or you just worked a ton of overtime and are brain-fried. But, other times, you’re just giving into the excuse monster.
I guess it’s the same for any aspect of your life. You have to put time into something to get something out of it or to get to the next level. If I don’t spend time writing stories and honing my craft, I’m won’t have stories to submit or ever improve in my craft. Both of those mean that this writing thing is never going to be any more than a hobby for me.
Writing as a hobby isn’t a bad thing. Tons of people do it. But I want something more. And if I want that something more, then I have to banish the excuse monster and his whispers about laundry, returning phone calls, and surfing the Internet, and get writing.
Of course, even still, the odds are against me. There are way more aspiring authors/novelists out there than those that get published every year. But, to quote one of my favorite movies, “Your odds go up when you file an application.”
What about you guys? Career or hobby? What do you think? And what do you think will help you achieve your goal?
In other news, I had a literary flash piece accepted today, so yay! Two acceptances in one week is a very good week.
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Argh! The excuse monster is forever rearing his ugly head! Sometimes I just have to make myself get out of the house, sit at a table in some coffee shop, and write for an hour or two. I’m quite good at getting distracted sometimes, though.
I hope writing is a career for me someday. I try to work toward that each day. It takes a lot of work to produce the volume of stories needed to do that, as well as research markets and send all those stories out. And the payback can be so small sometimes.
This week I haven’t been as productive as I’d like, but I did finish revisions on two stories, submitted a few stories, and made a little progress on an unfinished story. And I got one acceptance last week, so yay!
I am new to the writing thing, but I am truly feeling what you’re saying.
It has been the most difficult thing I have attempted in life, so far.
Far more difficult than my marathoning hobby, or my career development.
Unfortunately, I love it.
I’ll be looking for more of your stuff.
Steph — an acceptance and submissions is good. Keep it up!
I know what you mean about the paycheck. I did the math yesterday and the sum total of my writing has netted me about $50. Seems crazy for all that work. But, hey, at least it was all electronic submission instead of snail mail, right? Not that I wouldn’t do it for free anyway!
Hi, Blake. Nice to meet you! I think that’s the way you know you were meant to be a writer — if you love it enough to do it despite the low odds of success and the lack of money. I would be writing my stories anyway, because I love to do it, so I figure I might as well try to submit and see what happens! Good luck with your stuff, and see you around the blog. Comment any time!
Blake — did you write “Rain” over at EDF? If you’re the same Teuscher, then let me say nice piece!