Hello, friends! Welcome to this month’s meeting of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group. If you’re an insecure writer in need of some support, then this is the group for you. Click here to learn more!
In my last post, I told you that I’m too stubborn to quit writing. Stubbornness is a trait that runs in my family, for better or worse. Stubbornness can be a virtue or a vice, depending on what you choose to be stubborn about. So while I may be too stubborn to quit writing, I have realized in the last few weeks that I need to stop being stubborn about the way my writing process works.
You see, I’ve always been obsessed with plans and goals. I like to plan out my day, my week, my year—my whole life, even—in meticulous detail. But about eight weeks ago, there was a family emergency, and for the past eight weeks now, all my plans have fallen apart: especially my writing plans.
So if I’m ever going to get back to my old self, I need a new plan. I call it a Writing Recovery Plan. Given that it took me eight weeks to get to the point I’m at now, I figure it’ll take about eight weeks to get myself back to the point where I was. So what will I spend the next eight weeks doing? Well, I don’t know. The plan is, essentially, to have no plan.
Maybe I’ll start writing Tomorrow News Network again, or maybe I’ll start something entirely new. Maybe I’ll write a bunch of sciency stuff for the blog, or maybe I’ll blog about something completely different. I don’t know. And for the next eight weeks, I’m not going to worry about it. I’ll simply let the muse point me in whatever direction she likes and see where that leads me.
At the end of my eight weeks, I’ll have to make some decisions. I will never quit writing, but there are other aspects of my writing life and writing career that might need to change. But that is not something I want to talk about or think about today. Today, I simply want to tell you that I’m back, officially. I’ll be blogging again on a weekly basis, covering topics that are… to be determined.
So next time on Planet Pailly, I’ll have something to say about something.
Planet Pailly 
Looking forward to seeing your posts, no matter what their topic! Definitely post on what’s on your mind. (Or what you want to be on your mind.)
On planning, working in a project oriented industry with constantly shifting priorities and broadsides, I’ve found a lot of value in keeping long range goals broad and simple, but keeping the detailed planning to only the next few weeks. It leads to a lot less frustration, disappointment, and guilt about not being where you should be on your two year plan. It’s an approach in the industry call “Agile”, but I’ve found it works pretty decently for personal endeavors. Just something to consider.
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Thanks! I’ll have to look into Agile more. That sounds promising.
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I wouldn’t sink much time into the methodology itself. It’s pretty specific to IT projects. But the general approach can be useful for a planner.
When it comes to writing, I think the main thing is to leave room to keep it fun. When I slipped in my own blogging frequency, that was what I had forgotten. I didn’t blog because I didn’t have time to do it “properly”, when all I really needed to do was just open up the editor and put down my thoughts about some news event or something that was already on my mind.
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I may have gotten myself stuck in the same mindset: that if I can’t write “properly,” then I can’t write at all. I’ll have to think on that more and experiment a little with my process.
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Small steps moving forward – that’s all you can do.
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True.
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Sounds to me like you’ve hit a growth spurt. Good for you. None of us should stop growing or learning even if it’s hard. 🙂
Anna from elements of emaginette
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Maybe so! I don’t know, we’ll just have to see where things go.
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Welcome back, James. I hope the family trouble has at least quieted down and you can find some calm. I’m looking forward to seeing what you’ll do next. Here’s to you for making it this far.
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Thanks, friend! Yeah, the family thing has calmed down a lot. Fingers crossed, but I think in a few more weeks, things will be back to normal.
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I love the idea of a writing recovery plan. I need to think about getting on something like that too.
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If you think it’ll help, go for it!
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I’ve recently experienced a similar lull in my writing. Too much of life going on, plus a manuscript that was going to take some major work to repair, drained me of all desire to write. I’ve got a fair amount of free time coming up starting next week, so on Monday morning, I’m going to make myself sit down and start being productive.
Good luck with your effort to jump back into writing. I know that once you get started, you’ll slide right back into it again.
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I’m sure you’re right, and I hope the same will be true for you. Getting started again after a lull is always the hardest part.
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Hello James, so glad that you’re starting on the road back. It’s not an easy one but I do agree with SelfAwarePatterns that the Agile mindset sounds really useful. I did scare myself by looking at the project planning process, but will be looking at how I can apply the overall mindset. I hope you find it helpful too James as you’d be too big a loss to writing for us to lose.
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Aww, thank you! That’s very kind! Yeah, the general idea behind Agile sounds really useful for lots of things. There are parts of it that can be adapted for writing, I think.
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