Abandon Outside Expectations

If my 'new plan for a new year' did anything, it wasn't simply making me set myself up for crippling failure, but reevaluating how I treat myself as a writer. I've done a lot of advice blogs, not coming from the place of an expert, but simply meant to help other writers to remember to be as flexible as their guys tell them to be.

So what about those lamenting they flit around and never finish anything? I could say that maybe the tides will turn, maybe you can try to try some methods that have worked for me. Still, you see the baffling overflow of bloggers and articles whining about how the overflow of ego-driven advice.

Where?

Seriously, where? This is the same thing that happened when Bird Box came out on Netflix. I saw tons and tons of memes complaining that social media is raving about it, but somehow, 99.9% of the people on my feed hadn't even bothered to see it. Given, I've got maybe 300-something friends on FaceBook and fuck Twitter, but the things that overflow into my feed sometimes assume we're all absorbing the same shallow sources.

A writer's bane is, what then; the burden of choice? That, in our most vulnerable times, we're possibly just drinking in the most click-baity articles while downing wine and using that fishing expedition as an excuse to claim we're 'blocked' or 'burnt-out'?

Because every writer I actually talk to has the equivalent of idea diarrhea (sorry that the analogy has come to this...) Even when we're not writing, we're endless streams of possibility. It's not anathema, to shy away from the pen or the keyboard. It's process and how you feel about it is contrary to how it actually works, more often than not.

The days where I write or edit the most are often days where I feel like, eh, I'll just poke at it for 15 minutes because I'm not feeling it. I never remember how much I enjoy it until I push it.

Sometimes I'm right and it doesn't take off, but this is one of those instances where I'm happy to be wrong.

Maybe it's because I went into the new year gently. I've finished all of the oral surgery, caught a bad cold and still, I'm hoping to get through the nitty gritty of editing and formatting. I'm really hoping to honor my mom's birthday with another book release, but I'm not going to panic if I have to adjust that goal. 

I know that doesn't sound gentle; the breaking of jaw and tooth, the wracking of coughs and the pile of publishing prep, but that's exactly how I see it. I've had to put off exercise goals so my body could heal first. I've gracefully chosen sleep when I really want to edit. I've taken my own advice, time and again, because the advice is only frustrating or useless to others if I'm just bleating the same shit other writers are apparently blogging about without applying it successfully myself.

Go ahead and blubber over click-baity advice while inebriated on your alcohol of choice sometimes. It's not the best advice I can give and it makes for a sad party, but what is good or bad advice comes with how well you mesh with, test or rebel against it. Don't let anything intimidate you against self-improvement. Don't let the pretentious goals of 'perfection' or 'mastery' push you off of being a story teller, no matter the medium you choose.

It is what it is. Sometimes the simplest truths are that plain. I can get flowery at times, but underneath the flower bed is a simple base of soil, a self-sustaining ecosystem that doesn't need me throwing fertilizer (or salt) down to feel like I'm doing enough.

Don't smother the garden. I can't stress enough that what keeps me steady on the path is being okay with not knowing every stone, not freaking out at every worm.

And while I heal, I'll be gentle, which includes busting my ass on a few pavers in my personal garden. Whatever works.

I may not be consistently blogging, but I'm at peace with that. It isn't a priority but I'll make it one when the time is right. Once a week sounds like a modest goal for now.