So I have been experiencing a major slump lately. Which to be honest, is quite typical considering I started up my blog and writing page a couple of months ago with the intent of being super productive and having poems, novel drafts, blog posts overflowing.
As you can probably tell from my not-so-regular blog posts, this has not gone as I planned.
I have spent a lot of time recently beating myself up over it. Imposter syndrome has been mega heavy, and the novel that I had been planning in my head for months has got no further than chapter 2, because I keep deleting and rewriting… and of course, beating myself up because who do I think I am that my novel or poetry is going to be good enough for anyone to read?!
A lot of this is medical also, I have hypothyroidism, and sadly it’s at the stage where my dose is being reviewed again because my thyroid doesn’t wanna thyroid. So this has made my hormones, fatigue and low mood at it’s peak level, which is slowly being fixed, but it’ll take a little bit of time.
To give some context on what my vision or dream as it were is, I write a lot of poetry and I’m also full of novel ideas I want to get out there – so my initial plan was by the end of the year to potentially have at minimum a draft of my first poetry book ready to release to the world, and also have at minimum my first drafts ready for 2 novels underway. But we’re now in June and I feel like I’m going backwards.
But it isn’t all doom and gloom in this post. Since I started my blog and a new Insta page for all my writing and bookish related stuff, engaging with other writers etc. I have come to learn a few things:
I’m comparing myself to people who have a completely different lifestyle or routine to my own – it’s easy to feel envious when a lot of people out there that I engage with, have published pieces of work, double the followings that I have and a lot more attention. But some of these people I compare myself to, have either been playing this game a lot longer than I have, or they’re people who are fortunately at a stage in their life where they can write full-time or have a lot more time/capacity to do it all.
I work 40+ hours a week and live alone, so I have to plan out things super well in order to really focus my time on writing. Not everybody has the same routines and lifestyles, as with most things in life, everyone’s journey is different to yours. So I have to stop comparing.
I am not alone in my struggles – one benefit I have found from the people I’ve met through blogging/my Insta/TikTok, is that there are so many people who are having the same ideas and dreams and struggling to overcome them. I actually had a writer tell me recently, that it took them four years to finally complete their first draft of their novel. Now, I’m hoping I will get mine done faster than that (I’m not getting any younger after all), but it just goes to show that I keep living in this mindset where everything fixes itself or comes together immediately or overnight, and that is just not how the world works. Be it in writing or anything else.
Lastly, You can’t rush perfection. I’m not implying that what I write or publish in the future is going to be perfect, I’m a raw unfiltered human, so my writing will probably reflect that in some ways, but it’s actually a good thing that I’m not rushing the process, I’m taking my time to rewrite or draft things out, it is a slow and painful process, but I am trying to imagine how amazing the end result will be when I do finally get there.
So… I am starting a few things now to try and help battle the blockages in the meantime.
1 – Setting myself 30 minutes to write every evening a bit of my novel, no rewrites or deletes, just keep going and write whatever I can to add to the story. I can edit later when I have completed it, but even just that small amount of time focusing will help me reach my goal without pressurising too much. Of course, some evenings I may write longer, some I might not manage – but that is the goal.
2 – Engage in as many writing related events that I can. I find writing workshops extremely helpful for writers block, even if it doesn’t help me complete what I’m currently working on, just having that fresh opportunity for new ideas, whether it be a novel idea or poems, can really make a difference.
3 – Schedule some posts on social media so that I don’t spend too much time doomscrolling when I should be being creative in my free time.
4 – Have a short period each day where I write whatever is in my head, whether it be in my journal or for a blog post, or random poems. Even if it’s a complete mess, just keeping myself productive with regularly writing.
5 – Spend more time engaging with other people who are on the same journey. I love that there’s platforms out there for writers to make friends and talk/vent about whatever they’re going through. It can sometimes be quite humbling to know we’re all facing the same dilemmas and it doesn’t have to be a competition.
6 – Last one, if I slip or fail at the above points, don’t beat myself up over it or let the inner voices take over. Remind myself that the fact that I have even got to this stage is still progression over all the previous years when I just daydreamed and did nothing!
Apologies for the long essay on this, but I really wanted to reflect on this. And also, if anyone is reading this who is on the same page, you’re not alone. Remember you have got this. We will get there 🙂
Positive, Yet Cynical 