I’m Questioning How Much I’ve Achieved This Year… Is That Just Me?

Did January Actually Happen?

What happened to January? It went so fast that I didn’t properly notice to write a blog complaining about it until the third of February. I find it hard to believe that I was listening to the manic fireworks set off near where I live over a month ago, yet I was. What has this got to do with literature?

I don’t know about you but I was happy to start a new year, a fresh start. As well as drawing a line under 2020 I thought with excitement about all the new books I’d discover and the ones I’d been meaning to read that I would finally get round to. By this time last year I’d completed reading five books, was well underway in writing my novel Indoldrum and managed a few blog posts and a trip to Albania; this January… well I made myself finish reading the book I started in December last night (which I ended up microwaving but that’s a different story), and this is only my second blog of the year. It’s true I did finish writing the first draft of my biggest project, but that was on the 13^th of January and I’d done the majority of the work between summer and December last year. So what have I been doing with my time? Between me and you I think “they” have stolen several minutes out of each hour and we’ve had a far shorter month. Amidst all the conspiracies, here’s the one “they’re” getting away with. I can think of no other explanation.

I think we’re all worn down with “the virus” and its affects. A lot of my friends productivity this year has slumped as well. I don’t feel low in myself, but there is a sense of lethargy in the air running parallel with the fact that time just seems to have sped up. I redrafted the fist two thirds of my work-in-progress several times last year; the third section is has remained unopened in its first drift since I completed it mid January. I know what I want to do with it and have notes stored in many places yet I’m still to sit down and get on with it.

This is not unusual, type “procrastination writers” in a search engine and you get many results, of which I am now adding to. As writers we are known for it it seems, read books or interviews by very successful authors and this doesn’t appear to change. The considered work ethic is delay, delay, delay, stay up until four o’clock in the morning because we’re on a roll. Although in general this is not totally me, there is more than some truth in it, I’ve done many a late late night at the keyboard. I hear of ones speaking about goals of “words per day” etc, but I’ve never been able to get my head round that. I love writing, although at times I’ll tell you a different story, but to push myself when I just don’t feel in the mode, to force myself everyday to achieve a target, would for me take the pleasure out of it, I’d be writing words not stories. I know I would have to come back and change it all later anyway and that would be a bigger stress. I can’t move forward until I’ve got at least the structure of the section passable, on the occasions I have just written it and moved forward I’ve had to go back anyway and the changes have messed up everything after that. I’d rather wait until I’ve got my head in the right place and I’m feeling inspired. That doesn’t mean I just give up at a hard part, there are times I’ve needed to just push on through a difficult passage, but I try and keep this to only when I have to rather than just to hit a target of words.

That is me as a writer, as a procrastinator in life in general I’m not, and this is probably half the reason I can find other things to do, that I decide I must do, before I can carry on writing. As I’ve convinced myself January was a shorter month than it usually is, the time I’ve had I’ve somehow filled with “work was really busy today so I need a rest” or just “stuff” that I don’t really remember doing.

It’s February and I really want to get some more books read and I must get round to completing what I’ve written. Way back last summer I assumed I’d be able to have it nearly finished by now – I’ve still a ton of work to do yet it sits there on my hard drive waiting for me to make the changes I know will make it so much better. So why am I writing a blog and not working on my novel? To slightly misquote Rusty Shackle “3 a.m. I’ll soon find you again”.

I don’t think it’s unusual that this year we’re all feeling a sense of ennui or listlessness and I wouldn’t beat myself up over it. It’s good to have a routine though, I’ve read this in many places. My problem is I can make a routine of a lot of things other than writing and from what I’ve read that’s normal in writers.

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