A Deep Breath (#26)

"Know your enemy, know yourself, and you shall win every battle."
Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Seriously, that thing looks like it's rubbing its ass on my cucumber plant.
(Yes, I noticed the double entendre in that sentence.)

"Next Sunday, I will either share my outline, or have the first fictional work completed." 

That was from last week's post. Today, neither is going to happen. I would love to say "I was busy". However, unless someone is surviving day to day, what they really mean to say is "I did not prioritize it". A lack of time is not my problem. The will to place this goal towards the top of my daily to-do list is at fault. If I would only follow through every day, even for thirty minutes, it would eventually become a habit. Then I could produce something weekly without struggling so much.

In case you missed it, last weekend I spoke briefly about a writing challenge I wanted to attempt. During the week, I would work on a short piece of fiction. Nothing overwhelming. Perhaps around thousand words. Then I would present it on Sunday as a blog post. This would happen for about fifteen straight weeks, which would bring me to the New Year. That should be plenty of time to build a habit of writing fiction daily. Also, publicly promising to upload them on a regular basis is a of motivation.

Well, it should have been. I know of at least two of me dear readers who were looking forward to it. One of them even had a suggestion: make each piece part of a large story. That is hard pass. It takes a lot more skill to write a large, cohesive fictional work. I am not there yet. For now, I want to focus on three tasks. First, putting the idea in writing. Second, working on it every day. Finally, producing a cohesive, edited story. 

There are plenty of ideas swirling around my head. But I have to sit down and type them out. That takes will. Something I lack most of the time. I am always thinking of the final product, and very little in the process to create it. Also, I have not written much fiction since high school, save for the two NaNoWriMo challenges I did over the past five years. So, I am not good at it. And I have to accept that my early attempts will suck. Finally, I have to put aside other priorities and habits that are getting in the way. Daydreaming is one of them. Doom scrolling is another. Often the latter triggers the former.

Anyway, tomorrow is Monday, which I have found motivates me to undertake new projects and goals. Maybe I will wake up, and the first thing I do, after feeding the two kittens (there is no way they will leave me alone long enough to write), is draft a story. Everything else--except the cats--can wait. 

We shall see.