How are you? Climbing the walls? Languishing in the depths of a cosy couch with a book or Netflix? Writing your book with gusto? Feeling guilty because you have not written anything? Not. One. Single. Word?
Here’s the thing. We are at this moment turned upside down and inside out. It is the perfect time to complete projects that have been screaming at us and yet it’s all so hard – physically, financially and mentally challenging.
I live and breathe writing and publishing. I know all the excuses for not working on projects because I’ve heard them all and used them all myself. And every day this month I’ve been going live on Facebook to challenge these excuses and offer strategies to overcome them. Saying and doing are two different things, just as creativity and productivity are two unique creatures. Writing anything is two-fold.
First comes the fun, creative part
There is the initial seed of an idea, then playing around with that idea. Brainstorming, planning, thinking, talking, procrastinating, more playing, thinking, jotting down thoughts, throwing away ideas. We might do this for months before we feel like this is a serious project that should be put into some kind of digestible form.
Second comes the work, the productive part
At some stage, all that brainstorming and thinking needs to be lassoed into something. You may not exactly know how to do that but once you work it out, you really just need to sit your butt down and do the work. This can be boring, hard work and often we procrastinate and come up with all those excuses for why we shouldn’t or can’t do it.
Wherever you are in your own project right now, don’t beat yourself up about suddenly having all this time on your hands but not managing to produce the work you said you would. If you at least ‘turn up’ to your project often (more than once a week) and play with it, you are giving it energy that will keep it moving forward. Even better that you turn up daily for just ten minutes, give it some juice and make it feel loved. In this way, just like any relationship, you make it feel appreciated and it won’t leave you.
In the meantime, don’t underestimate the many things we can do to feed our own soul like cooking, gardening, walking, reading, watching Netflix to remind ourselves that we are human and need downtime when things are off-kilter. These things feed our creative core, which will help when we are at that creative stage of a project. And surprisingly, if you are turning up for your project often, it will be in your head more often and more ideas will flow to you while you’re relaxing on the couch or digging the soil.
Are you confused? Don’t I harp on about sitting down and writing that damned book? Well, yes, I do that a lot. But I also know that if you really want to write that book you will because it will keep calling you and we need to put the brakes on this ‘overnight’ thinking where we are in a hurry to do everything and suddenly we don’t know where our life went. It’s all a blur. We really do need to stop and smell the roses from time to time and be a little kinder to ourselves.
Blaise, the book chick.