Photo by Christian Erfurt on Unsplash

Hi SEers. John with you today. I had a sudden awakening before writing this post, and it made me feel somewhat uncomfortable. I think I can describe it but bear with me. To try, I will give you a hypothetical entry in my diary. (I really don’t have a diary, but it makes it a little easier to introduce my situation.)

Well, dear diary, here I am with over 35,000 words of my next book. What’s that? I think you ask a good question, “Why am I writing in a diary and not in the book?” You are very wise, Dear Diary. I wish I had an answer.

Now I turn to you, SEers. You see, it has been a week since I last made any headway on the draft of my book. It looks like I might have a problem with motivation.  How do I know that, you ask? Okay, I’ll give you an example. Last Monday, I sat down and wanted to write one thousand words. Before I knew it, I had raised a situation in the story that required some research. Nothing heavy, so I decided to do it right then. Three hours later, I was still reading about the different types of gold mining. Believe me; no one gives a rip about the different ways to mine gold. Do I hear you say, ” That spending a few hours on research is not a bad thing?”  Wait until you read what else.

I decided that because the afternoons are so hot, I would do some needed work in the yard in the morning. There was a sage bush that needed trimming. So, on Tuesday morning, I went at it. It took me until lunchtime to get it cut, and all the wood put away for pick up. Then what did I do after lunch? I wrote a blog post, did e-mails, and visited some blogs. Before I knew what was happening, it was four o’clock—no way could I sit down and write on my WIP. I was just too tired.

Digging trenches to reroute downspout water took up Wednesday morning. Then there was tending to the blog, answering e-mails, visiting other’s blogs, and exercising. By the time I finished all of that, it was time to hit the relax button.

I had planned a big writing day on Thursday, but time got away from me. By the time I mowed the lawn and finished my exercise, e-mails galore waited for my attention.  There was also a post to write for the blog.

So here we are on Friday. I haven’t written a word on my draft, and I have promised that maybe I’ll get to it on Saturday. But, of course, I promised myself the same thing all week.

Now I ask you, SEers.  Am I avoiding working on my WIP?

There is no need to answer that question. It is evident that, for some reason, I am avoiding my usual daily work on my manuscript. I don’t have a problem writing blog posts or short stories. But, is it that I do not want to finish my book? Do I have some belief that the story won’t be good? Do I think my career as a novelist is over? Whaaaaaaaaaaah.

I might be overreacting slightly, but has this kind of thing ever happened to you? Let me know in the comments if you ever had the feeling that you would almost do anything in place of writing on your current manuscript. Also, if you have had that feeling, what did you do about it?

I hope you all have a super weekend.