April 24, 2015

Losing my Mind - Writer Style

I'm giving myself whiplash and anxiety, and, just for fun, I'm burying myself under a whole ton of guilt.

I can't focus on just one task. Instead I am in the middle of 3 WIPs and 2 blog posts, behind in my email, and feeling hopeless about my to-do list. My ever growing, never shrinking to-do list.

I have a theory about multi-tasking. It's doing more than one thing at a time poorly. You accomplish nothing of significance and you just feel shitty about it.

I spend (probably) too much time reading about promoting and not enough time creating. There's no excuse for it. At the end of the day, should I really care if I've mastered the latest in social media tricks? Especially when the holy grail of selling books apparently doesn't even lie in promotion.

Still I take another spin on the merry-go-round until I fly off into the abyss.

Pimp published book.
Sub completed manuscript.
Blog.
Guest blog.
Pimp blog.
Write article.
Sub article.
Pimp article.

Basically 'scream' on Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus. Buy my book, read my blog post, like me!

Where does the writing fit in?

The whole thing is making me dizzy and not helping to accomplish anything. Except to feed my frustration over all the things I cannot control in my life. My health being my primary concern right now. I have been confined to mainly bed rest for 2 months now. And I don't have a diagnosis yet. It's most inconvenient.

I have a long to-do list and good intentions. But good intentions will not propel me forward. Especially when my attempts to complete tasks are thwarted by my disease - whatever it may be.

I am a numbers person. There's a certain safety in numbers, a logic to analyzing data and making decisions. Number of hits on my website or blog determine what content is working. Twitter followers and Facebook page likes show how many people I am reaching in those sites.

My obsession with numbers can be so rigid, so contrary to my creative side. It's the whole left-brain versus right-brain thing. I want to organize myself and keep to a writing and promotion schedule, but too many factors are in the way.

Primarily, you can't make your characters talk to you. But if you give them the opportunity to speak, they will. After all, for a writer, which is crazier - hearing the voices or not?

Oh and, by the way, can you 'like' my new Facebook Author Page? Just kidding! Not really... :) https://www.facebook.com/MayaTylerAuthor

2 comments:

  1. I am so disorganised it's not funny. I'm so caught up in getting this ms finished I've let everything else go to pot. Let's go with the theory creative minds are too busy creating new worlds to sweat the small stuff :)

    Get well soon!

    Karin x

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