Writing is Hard | WIP Update | July 2022 | Different Mindset

Previous Post: Writing is Hard | WIP Update | June 2022 | (*sigh*)

Today I finished reading The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. It was a great read, full of a lot of interesting studies on habits and how to change them. I highly recommend it but that is not the reason why I brought it up (or started my July writing update with this paragraph lol). In the book there was mention of a religious figure, and of course the book talked about how he used habits to build up a huge religious society, but there was also a little side note that caught my eye. In that story the religious figure suffered from anxiety and depression, and there was a time that he couldn’t handle doing his services anymore. So he went off the grid for a time. It was just a small part of his story but it struck me all the same.

For so long I have avoided writing (part was due to life circumstances that were out of my control) but the rest I realized stemmed from the overwhelming task of writing a book. Perfectionism is something I’ve struggled with throughout my life. I wanted my story to be perfect but nothing is perfect. Nothing. It is impossible. But I still wanted it anyway. So I put off writing on my story in the few moments in my hectic life I did have. Because the task I set myself was daunting. The perfect book. I became increasingly stressed out whenever faced with the task of working on The Lowell Saga.

The other part of my problem I realized only after I rewatched Kiki’s Delivery Service which I hadn’t seen in its entirety in years. If you know the movie you will know what I mean when I say that in my dream of wanting to be a full time writer I put so much pressure on myself that writing wasn’t fun anymore. I became anxious, sad and I lost the belief in myself that it would ever come true.

As I am writing this post though, again I feel so much better getting all my thoughts out in words. Writing is a part of me even though I am struggling to find my footing with it again. July was a bad month in terms of progress with my story. I am trying to fix that. But the first step is in fixing myself.

Like I said, I haven’t made much (if any) progress on The Lowell Saga.

But I have started to listen to writing podcasts, and I have started to read more articles on writing, and I have surfed YouTube to watch videos of other writers and their routines and I have decided to try to adopt a new way to think. I can’t look at my story as a life or death situation anymore. All the joy of why I started writing in the first place just gets sucked away and I end up sad. So, I am going to start thinking of it less as a job and more as a hobby. That subtle change in thought alone already makes me feel immeasurably better.

Maybe that way it can go back to being something I love and not something I have come to fear.

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(Currently still revising the first draft of TLS…..)