What to Do When Life Gets … Boring

Crickets.

I know. I know. Two people asked me IRL when I was going to write another blog post, and I didn’t have an answer for them. And that was more than a month ago.

It would be easy enough to blame my busy summer. It has been busy. A dear friend came to stay with me for a week. I had another California cat-sitting adventure, where I was technically working but I was also going to Disneyland for the first time, marveling at the topography–those mountains, man–and frequently phoning the airline I will maybe never fly again because they left me stranded in Newark with no remorse, which was a whole big thing. Then I left almost immediately for the shore, my happy place, where I mostly stared at the ocean, read books, and occasionally dominated at mini golf, and didn’t think about work (or writing) at all. When I wasn’t doing all those things, I had to focus on my writing clients so I could pay for all those adventures.

Confession Time

But. That’s really an excuse. The thing is, even if I had time to write this blog, I just didn’t know what to say.

Things on the writing front are … fine. They’re fine. Nothing is wrong, really. Everything’s just a bit … stalled. Which is fine, really, maybe preferable even, when I’m distracted by trips and also trying to spend every sunny evening in the pool before autumn’s inevitable descent. (Another summer accomplishment – I have a fantastic tan!) But when I have been in my office the past few months, I’ve mostly been lacking … momentum.

I was going to say inspiration. And maybe that’s true too. Maybe they go hand in hand. But what I’d really love is a flurry of productivity, where I get a lot done AND I GET IT DONE FAST. Lately it seems like writing–and particularly rewriting–takes forever. I’ve been writing Phoenix Falling since November 2004 so that’s really not an exaggeration. I wrote the first 50,000 words in a month. About 19 or 20 days, actually, because I didn’t discover NaNoWriMo until the month was well underway. I finished the rest of that first draft sometime within the next year. And I’ve rewritten it off and on ever since. I’ll do the math for you – that’s coming up on 19 YEARS! I left my job to finish it almost 2 years ago and it’s STILL. NOT. DONE. Every time I think it might be, I discover that it’s not.

My next hurdle is somehow cutting 15,000 out of 115,000 words to get it more inline with industry standards. Alas, I can’t just decide chapters 11-15 are unimportant, highlight, delete, and be done with it. Everything is intertwined… subplots and worldbuilding and character development. I can line edit away some of those words – slowly, so darn slowly – but really what it needs is for the manuscript to be tighter, more compelling, and there’s something absolutely paralyzing about figuring out how to do that.

So I mostly haven’t tried. I’ve been distracted by my secret project. Another excuse. Which is still mostly secret, at least in a public way. It’s finally moving forward, but very very slowly. And I’m learning about patience and accepting feedback and how the publishing industry works, which are all important lessons, and the day I can actually announce what’s going on will be VERY VERY EXCITING. But for the past few months this project has mostly just contributed to my feeling of being stuck.

And I go to work and I write blog posts for other people and I chip very slowly away at my novel or my project but I haven’t felt the same excitement that I used to. I’m not motivated enough in the morning to get to my workspace on time. And bored’s not actually the right word because I have plenty to do–enough to keep my head spinning–but at times it all feels a bit rote.

Channeling My Inner Turtle … Err, Hero

And maybe this is where other people give up, if they can. I sort of can’t – I left my job to finish my novel. I’d rather feel kind of blah than look for another traditional job and all the soul-crushing stress that entails. I’m also committed to this project, having finally signed a legal document that it felt like I had to move mountains to sign. So I need time to actually complete this project.

Most importantly, I don’t actually want to give up. So that means I have to figure out how to keep calm and carry on, like the Brits.

This is a season in my journey. And as anyone who lives in a place with actual seasons knows, some seasons are less great than others (I’m looking at you winter). But then others (like summer, if you’re me and you just want to read books with the sun beating down on you while you sit in/beside a body of water) are even more amazing in contrast to the sucky ones. So I’ve been looking for the lessons I’m supposed to learn from this time. It seems to me that sometimes if you want to achieve something great, you just have to do the work. And there will be times when it’s fun and exciting and surprising, and times when it’s just … work.

Think of any superhero origin story. There is always a part of the movie where the hero has to train for what comes next. This montage is usually set to music and last for the duration of one song. At the beginning they’re always a disaster. Often humorously so. But by the time the last chorus swells they are excellent at their new skills or powers and are ready to take on the bad guy.

In truth, the training process takes days, weeks, even months. Because our attention spans are short, and for the most part training is pretty boring, we see about four minutes of it. We’re interested in how inept someone started, and how far they’ve come, and maybe a few humorous glimmers of progress along the way. But we want to fast forward through everything else in between.

Unfortunately we can’t do that in real life. Not even in our own journeys.

A hero has to persevere through all the moments a writer or director has decided no one wants to see. And in order to change your life or accomplish a goal, sometimes you just have to push through the tedium. Persistence and hard work and good habits are all necessary parts of that training. And one day, once you reach the other side, you can focus on the fun stuff. But you’ll never get there if you don’t power through and actually do the thing.

An artist who gives up when they don’t feel inspired may occasionally create a work of art – but they’ll never build a career.

Persist and Persevere

So I’ll keep going, and I hope you will too. I’m happy to report that I’ve been more focused this last week or two, and was able to push through a massive task that had intimidated me. And I also returned to this long abandoned blog and spewed out this cathartic post filled with turtles and somewhat painful honesty in just two days. As I start seeing progress in my various projects, hopefully that will build momentum, like the oft-mentioned snowball rolling down the hill. (Who came up with the metaphor, anyway? Who makes a snowball just to push it down a hill? Shouldn’t you make a snowman on a flat surface and then go sledding?)

As for my overly-long, somewhat neglected novel – I’m hoping to take a week in October where I set all other writing projects aside and just focus on coming up with a plan and executing it so I can get my problem child back in shape for submission. A birthday gift to myself, so to speak. The task may not be insurmountable if I take the time and eliminate all distractions. Wish me luck!

Until then, I’ll once again leave you with my favorite Fall Out Boy coping with rejection mantra: Don’t stop dancing. Don’t dare stop.