Inside my brain:
I'm panicked. Anxious. Worried.... Off.
I sometimes get this way and don't have an exact word for the feeling, but I needlessly feel doomed. My life is relatively calm, I don't work late or at home anymore, and I have actual free time to write. My financials are fine, my work is done up until next week, and nothing noteworthy or mentionable happened.
I know, deep down, that the next book needs to have a strict outline because I'm floundering. But once I sit down, I stare at my cursor, and all I do is comb through my chapters and wonder what I'm doing. I have several ideas, I've written half an outline on a few of them when I can't think up anything for my current book, and the thing is...
It's a few chapters short of a full-ass book. I literally have an entire book.
I hit my word mark already, but it's climbing a bit from a shorter novel to an actual story with deeper meaning. I'm excited, don't get me wrong, but there's something inside me that fights with whether or not. I should be finished with it now or be patient.
Part of me is like, look here, you literally started this book in what, March? Thanks to Insta, it says April, I got the wild hair to write my almost done book. I've been writing this for going on six months. In the grand scheme of things, I should be amazed that I have written 70,000+ words. Last year I started and am somewhat finished with my first book, which comes in at 120,000 words, and I have three other partial stories on the back burner that I add notes to every now and then.
I have, in fact, done something amazing.
It's telling myself I'm on the right track, that my brain doesn't get. I'm getting there. The opportunities are there; I've submitted two of my works, and I'm still trudging along in the literature world by reading when I'm not writing, or when I'm not doing that, I'm watching anything I can watch on TV that's new.
Even though half of it is shite and makes me want to write better content. I at least have compiled a list of shit I will not be writing about.
While watching the Amazon Prime show called Authors Anonymous, one of the characters said something quite profound to me that I understood completely. Kucko's character tells another that they're paying attention too much; their brain is every which way but where it should be: Writing.
I'm thinking about work, it's wedding season. I'm thinking about getting ahead of my line; I'm thinking about taking on extra dresses to recoup our savings. I'm thinking about writing, not writing, my current book, my past book, what I'm doing right, and what I'm doing wrong.
What other people are doing right and wrong.
I'm reading, blogging, Instagramming...
I'm also trying to have a life with my husband, be a cat mom, be somewhat social with friends, and what have you. I couldn't imagine having actual children. I have so much on my plate that when I go to sit down and start typing, I can't.
Because my brain is pulled a million and one ways, and no matter how much time I set aside to try and inspire myself to write, I either go watch a movie, read a book, or take a nap because my brain is done for the day.