Wow...can you believe that it's already been 2015 for a whole week? And it's been pretty darn cold where I am, which means it's the perfect weather to curl up on the couch or in bed and read a good book.
However, today I'm going to talk about some of those pitfalls that I've learned can be quite common for writers. They are especially relevant to me as I have been putting off the release of my second book for the past five months. I'm really trying to get it finished and out in the world, but I never imagined how much more difficult it would be to complete the second book while promoting the first on social media.
Anyway...first major pitfall, which is really a hazard for anyone regardless of career path/hobby/etc...procrastination. You know that vortex of lost time known as Facebook and Twitter, or YouTube, or any other site that keeps you from accomplishing any goals you may set? Yeah, we all do it. I spend a lot of time on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads. Part of me knows that it is just me keeping up with readers, reviewers, book bloggers, and other authors, but I realize that it is mostly me just distracting myself from doing any real work.
So then the question becomes...how do you avoid falling into that black hole of social media? Well, I've tried just turning off the Wi-Fi on my laptop, but it only takes one press of a key to turn it back on. During NaNoWriMo, I did a trial run of an app I've heard other authors mention multiple times, Freedom (https://macfreedom.com/). It is a very handy program. You set a time for how long you would like to stay off the Internet and Freedom actually makes it to where you cannot get Internet access until that time goal is met. Now, you can cut that short by restarting your computer, but who wants to go through that hassle? My problem is that when I'm running Freedom, I can still pick up my smart phone and log in there. But, overall I think Freedom is probably worth the $10.
Mostly I think avoiding procrastination comes down to just forcing yourself to put your butt in the chair and just do whatever you need to, whether that is homework, finishing a novel, or some other important task.
The next pitfall to a writer is perfectionism. I know I'm guilty of this, and I've met several other writers who mention this as well. When you've been working on the same novel for a decade because you keep writing and re-writing scenes, you may have fallen prey to the notion that your book will never be properly finished. And guess what? It never will be, but you can finish it and it can still be a great book. I have read so many blogs and Facebook posts from published authors who talk about the desire to go back and edit a novel one last time, even despite the fact that it was published a couple years earlier and people seem to like it. We will always think that it could use one more editing pass, but sooner or later we have to just let that idea go.
I'm running into this issue with Project Death: Revelation. Thanos is such a difficult character and narrator to begin with, and I feel this obligation to do his book justice. Not only that, I want it to be a good sequel, and I want my readers to like it as well. It causes me to over-think my scenes and the various plot threads. This is not helped by the fact that Thanos's story is both prequel and sequel. I not only have to think about how Thanos became Death and how he learned to deal with his new position, but I also have to worry about the events in the present with Tamesis, the Reapers, and the issues with the Resurrectors. It is a lot to process and in some ways I fear that the book will seem rushed...so I keep procrastinating on the actual writing and instead just ponder and percolate on the next scenes I should write.
How do we avoid this bottomless pit of perfectionism? Personally I try to convince myself that it is November whenever I sit down to write, because NaNoWriMo has a way of making me just write, without thinking of if the phrasing is perfect or if I'm using proper spelling and grammar. That is what editing is for, after all. When I manage to succeed at that task, then I set a deadline for editing and hope that everything flows from "Once Upon A Time" to "Happily Ever After" (so to speak, anyway. I'm not actually writing a fairy tale).
Finally, there is the pitfall of pressure, and this is the one I am most guilty of. I never expected to get the responses from readers like I have from my first book. I have a handful of ladies at work who ask me about once a week or so when my next book will be out. Suddenly I understand what it is like for some of my favorite authors when we finish a book the day it's released and question why we have to wait for a whole year for the next one. It takes a lot of time to write a book and edit it, and sometimes I think we readers forget that.
With a first book there is very little pressure. Nobody is expecting the release, and you can take your time. But once that first one is out in the wild, all of a sudden you have to keep up with a schedule for the next book and at the same time you have to start planning for the one after that.
Then, add on top of all that having a job to actually pay the bills and then whatever personal pressures you have at home (work, school, loans, whatever...) and suddenly you have so much pressure that all you want to do is escape into the land of social media procrastination.
See, these pitfalls feed into one another. You procrastinate because you want perfection on account of the pressure to finish the next book, which then leads to more procrastination. It is a vicious cycle.
We just have to work hard to drag ourselves out of the depths and get the work done.
So, get a community of other writers to support and motivate you, as long as you do the same for them. Let's get the words written, let go of the idea of perfection, and instead of feeling pressure to get the work done, enjoy the experience. Hopefully.
Okay, I'm off to write some more words on this novel. Thanks so much for stopping by.
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