I've been working on and thinking about a short story for more than a year but so far I've got nothing. That's a painful sentence to write but its accurate and the whole point of fiction, for me, is to scribble down the truth in a captivating way when other people can't or won't.
Another big thing: I've finally figured out what to do with this blog . . . Again.
It's gonna be like my writing diary of sorts where I can keep up to date on the progress of my work and make sure that I'm always producing something . . . So I don't spend a year working ONE DAMN SHORT STORY that has been plotted out long ago.
Fact is, I need to start moving on this stuff quicker if there's even the slightest hope of getting people to read it . . . Which is the whole point of writing it after all.
So, in a very small way . . . The public shaming and tacit admission of procrastination is to keep myself working.
Another thing: I'm setting a 2k a day writing quota independent of the work I do already. It's not much but it's a start and it doesn't have to be all on one project. Still, 2k a day puts me on track to to FINISH stuff on a reasonable deadline.
More than anything, getting the word DEADLINE back into my vocabulary should hopefully be a powerful motivator.
Now, hopefully there will be minimal blog post bloviating in the future and far more discussion about writing and working projects . . . THAT is the point of this place on the Internets. And even as I write that, it's important to realize that these "starting over" posts are always the easiest to produce . . . But I digress.
If things go right (write?) this should be just one post out of many along the way to documenting something that's actually worth reading.
The posts about the stories and work might be interesting and they're helpful to keep track of the big picture but really this is simply part of the process in getting toward COMPLETING bigger projects.
Tom Petty once told us that "The Waiting Is The Hardest Part" and that might be true if we're talking about a woman or check or something that involves the somebody else's work or consent. But when it comes to putting off labor of any sort . . . The waiting is incredibly easy and the enemy of a person would otherwise really want to get something, anything done but might know exactly how to go about accomplishing it.