I’m in a real dithery phase at the moment… I don’t know if I have too much to do (or think I have) and can’t settle to any one thing, or if I’m just going through an idle phase, or whether (heaven forfend!) I am losing my writing way… I do have various projects going on, as well as writing my current story, and I do think the prospect of the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is making me restless as I have a strong idea for what I am going to write for it.
My writing friend confided that he has decided to cut out all the projects that are distracting and prioritise the five main areas to focus on. I looked at his list and suggested he cut out two more and have a list of three… he agreed, and I think he felt relieved! I then began to reflect on my own dither… maybe I should prioritise – just for the next two and a bit weeks, just until November 1st and the start of the thirty-day NaNo writing challenge.
So… priorities…
- my 1950’s novel – it will be shelved on October 31st to make way for NaNo, so I want to have made a good way through it and if I concentrate, I should get to half way. by the end of the month
- writing here – being here is like doing warm-ups before a race, it helps me focus, gives me strange inspirations, and also I like doing it!!
- writing on the blog I share with friends – as above, and I’ll schedule some posts for my November writing retreat!
- writing for my writing groups – I have already written the piece for one writing group, even though we aren’t meeting for some weeks, For the other group, I have something to write for Friday – the subject is a piece of music as inspiration and the only difficulty is thinking which piece of music! The groups meet once a month so as soon as I know the topics for November I’m going to get them written!
- preparing some of my e-books for republication as paperbacks
November is going to be a tight month for writing as we have a family wedding which will take me away for a weekend, and another family party which will take me away for another couple of days…
So, no time to lose! Stop dithering! Focus!!… maybe I will just have a cup of tea before I settle to write… and I’ll just skip through the newspaper…