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Distracted from the Work
In one of the comments from yesterday's post, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lyster (good friend of the blog and fellow Substrater Max Gladstone) noted things that have been distracting him from writing and included this sentence:
This wasn't a problem until recently, when I got a day job, because I could get all my Work done during the day and only rarely had small-w work (the paying, non-writing kind) to compete with it for time.
There are definitely days when I forget to think of the Work -- the writing that's actually telling stories, that reflects passions and suffering and (dare I say?) art and the mythic impulse (to use a coined phrase) -- with its capital letter. And by all rights, the Work needs its capital!
It is so easy to get bogged down in small-w work. It pays the bills. It's easily justifiable as a way to spend time. It has real actual deadlines. There's someone on the other end holding you accountable. And that makes it so, so easy to give small-w work the priority.
m_stiefvater just posted recently about how to write a novel. (Go read that post and come back. I'll wait.) She says:
This is what you say: “‘I’m writing the novel. Starting now. Not only that, but I’m finishing it.”
Focusing on the Work is the only way for that novel to ever become more than a dream.
I was chatting with a fellow freelancer about the balance of work vs. Work (in slightly different words) in an e-mail earlier today, and I offered advice, despite my not having mastered the balance. I almost always err on the side of work. And that means the Work often suffers or gets left behind. I need to followm_stiefvater's advice: I'm writing the novel. Starting now.
Well... maybe starting after this deadline. :)
lyster (good friend of the blog and fellow Substrater Max Gladstone) noted things that have been distracting him from writing and included this sentence:This wasn't a problem until recently, when I got a day job, because I could get all my Work done during the day and only rarely had small-w work (the paying, non-writing kind) to compete with it for time.
There are definitely days when I forget to think of the Work -- the writing that's actually telling stories, that reflects passions and suffering and (dare I say?) art and the mythic impulse (to use a coined phrase) -- with its capital letter. And by all rights, the Work needs its capital!
It is so easy to get bogged down in small-w work. It pays the bills. It's easily justifiable as a way to spend time. It has real actual deadlines. There's someone on the other end holding you accountable. And that makes it so, so easy to give small-w work the priority.
m_stiefvater just posted recently about how to write a novel. (Go read that post and come back. I'll wait.) She says: This is what you say: “‘I’m writing the novel. Starting now. Not only that, but I’m finishing it.”
Focusing on the Work is the only way for that novel to ever become more than a dream.
I was chatting with a fellow freelancer about the balance of work vs. Work (in slightly different words) in an e-mail earlier today, and I offered advice, despite my not having mastered the balance. I almost always err on the side of work. And that means the Work often suffers or gets left behind. I need to follow
m_stiefvater's advice: I'm writing the novel. Starting now.Well... maybe starting after this deadline. :)