What have you written lately?

What have you written lately?

What have *I* written lately? Not much. 

I think about writing a lot.

I strategize about writing a lot. 

I write content (this newsletter, for example, and this summary of a survey about writing retreats,  for another) and notes to myself about what I’m working on and what I’d like to write, a lot.

I wrote a whole book proposal for a how-to-write-a-book book in Q1 of this year, decided that half the idea was good, and maybe I could do something with it later this year. 

I had an idea for a novel and tinkered with it and took a workshop to develop it in Q1 and wrote a Blueprint for it in Q2, and got stuck on how to move forward with it, so I put it aside.

I pitched and wrote guest posts for other blogs and guest episodes for podcasts.

I resurrected a draft of an essay in May/June, did a little work on it, then put it away again. It needs more work. It’s on my Q3 to-do list.

I’ve been submitting my experimental glossary-form memoir for 2.5 years (80 rejections to date!) and I’m thinking about how much time, effort, and money it’s taken and I still don’t have a published book in my hands, and whether I should give up hope of getting it traditionally published and put it away, self/hybrid publish, or rewrite it entirely. 

Wow, that’s a lot of mental real estate dedicated to thinking about writing instead of writing.

I turned to my trusty Seven Drafts by Allison K Williams to see what she advises. At the bottom of  page 93, there’s a footnote for if your unfinished projects are filling up your creative mental space, and it links to this blog post: 

“Idea Debt is when you spend too much time picturing what a project is going to be like, too much time thinking about how awesome it will be to have this thing done and in the world, too much time imagining how cool you will look, how in demand you’ll be, how much money you’ll make. And way too little time actually making the thing.” - Jessica Abel

I recognize myself in that remark!

I see a lot of starts and stops – with nothing finished. 

I see a lot of space/time/energy being used for the unfinished projects.

Maybe space/time/energy used for planning is taking away from being able to complete a project.

Not that there’s anything wrong with prioritizing one project over another, working on one project at a time, or letting ideas lie fallow for a while. These are all valid strategies. 

Are all of the things that are “in progress” holding me back from writing and finishing something else? 

I think so. 

This week, I will do something about it.

What do *you* do about it?