You ever find yourself with so many things you COULD be doing that you don’t know where to start, so you end up getting nothing done? You stare at the screen, trying to will something into existence, a sign or something that says “Work on this first.”
I’m an organized person. Sometimes I think I’m too organized. I have systems and lists in place for all kinds of different situations. But sometimes you reach a point on more than one project where you freeze.
I’ve currently got TWO stories out for beta reads and edits, and there are any number of other things I COULD be working on in the meantime. That’s the problem, so many things I could be doing. But I know that, when the edits come back on those other two stories, I’m going to want to put down what I’m doing and get back to those. So what do I have currently on the “could be working on it” list that I’m comfortable putting down at the drop of a hat, or the arrival of an email? I don’t really want to “abandon” any of them, and that’s the problem. I don’t want to start anything I’m going to have to stop with no notice.
So I find myself looking at the two stories that are out, wondering if just by staring at them, I can make them perfect and ready to go. Or I stare at my list of other projects I could be working on in the meantime, wondering if just by staring at them, I can make them perfect and ready to go so I don’t have to put them down again a few days later.
Also, it’s Saturday and I’m headed to work in an hour, which means after that, I’m done writing for the day (I REALLY need to mow when I get off tonight, then, since it’s Saturday, Kara and I always go out to dinner on Saturday), and tomorrow’s Sunday, which is newsletter day, so I know nothing I work on today is going to get touched again until Monday at the soonest. And that’s two days’ time my beta readers and editors have to finish the work their doing and send it back to me, thereby postponing, even longer, whatever I was going to start today.
Writer problems.