Right.
This is not working.
The other day I updated my Twitter bio and, in the interest of saving space, I changed ‘aspiring author’ to ‘writer’. And since I updated it, something’s been gnawing at the back of my brain. It took me until just now to figure out what it was, and it turns out it’s my conscience saying, “Are you, though?”
Well, yeah, I write two blog posts a week, I could be called a writer. But since finishing university, I’ve only written one short story, and that was just a first draft. It’s not a case of writer’s block; every day I have new ideas that could easily bear fictional fruit. It’s a case of me having better things to do with my time. And that sounds awful, because writing is my heart and soul, it’s my calling. But gaming is addictive. Netflix and Youtube are easy distractions. And these two weekly blog posts I create seem to be enough productive writing to successfully quell the little voice inside my head that periodically tells me I should be writing something. So I’ve come to a dreary halt, on the fictional front.
And as an aspiring author, that just ain’t cricket.
So first off, I should go in for the reassurance angle and say that yes, I’ll continue doing these two weekly blog posts and no, I have no plans to change the quantity or quality of the posts provided. Hell, I might have more to talk about on this blog. But my new plan is that on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays – starting next week – I shall produce at least 100 words of fictional content… hopefully, far more. I’ve no idea what form it is going to take, and much of it won’t see the light of day. But my writing has taken the backseat for too long in my life; I’ll often find myself looking at writing competitions and having every intention of entering, but conveniently forgetting to when the deadline for entry rolls around. I’ll write a short story, become enthused about the ideas and characters I’ve created, and 99% of the time will fail to return to it for a second draft. This is atrocious, and without fixing it and taking control of my idling ways, I really won’t be able to call myself a writer, or claim it to be my profession. It’s already too late for me to have been some superstar up-and-coming teenage writer – due to laziness or lack of courage, you decide – but I’ve still got an entire life to seize my fate as a writer, and elderly Kristian won’t be able to forgive 21 year old Kristian for letting the only talent we have slip into irrelevance and disrepair.
Writing this blog post, I’m reminded – painfully – of a very similar blog post where I once said I was going to write a novel with no plans of letting it see the light of day, simply writing it for the experience of doing so. That petered out into nothingness after two or three chapters, if I recall correctly. But over the course of the last year, I’ve proved to myself that if given the proper resources and determination, I can stick to a self-motivated routine and push onwards to where I want to be, even if I’ve failed to do so before. The obvious example is the weekly blog posts; another is the name-every-day project which is still going strong; but the most unexpected example I’m bringing to the table is my Skyrim playthrough. The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim was the epitomy of a grandiose and enjoyable task that I simply did not have the attention span to reap the rewards of pursuing. One day, after having started many 2-hour playthroughs of the game, I pushed through the will to drop it for another game and gave it my full attention, and have since played it almost to 100% completion (which is a grand task indeed). Odd as this example may be, I feel it mirrors wonderfully the efforts I have made to focus on this blog, and the efforts I’ll need to focus on finally breaking in to regular, fictional writing.
And publicly announcing it on my blog is further motivation to not fall into failure yet again.
Perpetually Perturbed 