It's been a while since I last wrote, a long while actually.
As usual life has been busy and I just haven't been able to keep up. So many things have happened in not even a year and I don't know where the time went. One minute I was writing, plowing through draft after draft. They weren't that good but I loved them, I loved writing, I was happy and then all of a sudden the joy died. I always thought that writing would be everything, that I would always live and breath writing and yet a year has passed and I've barely written a word. I want to write. Writing has always been my way of breathing and I'm suffocating. It's not a lack of desire, I want to write I want to breath life into my story, my characters. Yet, when I sit down and look at the screen or paper, begin writing one word it's gone. There are no words. I clearly see what I want to write, the character arcs are there the details are there but the words aren't.
Since I published my first book A Daughter's Fury and shared it with the world. Mainly my family anyway, well this is finally when they bothered to read it. It was a friend of my sister who read it and reported her findings to my sister. My sister isn't that big of a reader, she does read but I guess not my genre. Anyway she's telling me what her friend thought, positive but apparently there are holes in my story. I guess beyond the obvious wholes of it being the first book in a series where all the questions aren't meant to answered yet there are more hole. My sister has no idea where the holes are or what they are about, so helpful, I am grateful though. Now I know at least one person beyond my friend/editor read the stupid book. A little while later my sister asks if she thinks I could make the book better. At this point honestly I'm sick of ADF I just want to move on with Alex's story.
Over a period of months, I'm working on draft after draft of the sequels and have half a dozen versions of each book. Little ideas start popping up about how I could've done things in ADF. I ignored them and ignored them until one massive idea popped into my head and I couldn't say no to it. So I gave in and started rewriting ADF, this of course led to another half dozen half finished drafts and the empty hole inside me now.
As much as I like to blame things on my sister that isn't the only thing that I believe led to my current state. In psychology there is a thing called Intrinsic and Extrinsic. Intrinsic basically means something you do for yourself. Extrinsic is something you do for others or the world. The example that I learned about this and that I relate to one hundred percent to is this:
Jill works at a grocery story. When she isn't working, she's at home baking. She loves to bake and try new recipes and bring treats to people at work since she can't eat them all herself. At work Jill ends up now working in the bakery and bakes for a living now. When at home she doesn't bake nearly as often anymore.
The explanation behind this is that baking at home is Intrinsic for Jill it's something she does for herself that she loves. But when she starts baking for her job and money it turns into Extrinsic.
The connection I see between Jill and myself is that when I began publishing my books, giving myself deadlines for publishing the next book and wanting to make money off of them and not making any money. It turned my love for writing for myself into wanting to write for the world. I have no idea if that can actually cause writing muteness. Could be as simple as I'm in college full time, have a job and at the end of the day I'm simply exhausted.
All I know is that I am never as fulfilled as when I spend an hour to a day writing. Finishing an assignment or a shift at work is simple relief of surviving. Writing was everything, and I can't help feeling that it's turned it's back on me and is gone. It sounds so stupid and silly but writing saved me and now I feel like I'm drowning but writing isn't saving me anymore.
Melodramatic I know but aren't we all deep inside.
Thanks for reading.
Taylor
