Hello Everyone!
I’ve been thinking about this past year and why I struggled so much to finish the drafts for my third book. The first draft took years to complete but I chalked that up to quarantine and how that affected all of us, but the subsequent drafts this year took much more effort to get through. Writing used to come very easily to me and it was (and still is sometimes) something I could get lost in very easily. I still love writing and when I am writing it genuinely makes me happy and feel fulfilled. The problem, however, is starting to write. I was trying to think about why it was so difficult for me to start a writing session to make progress on my writing goals. After some thought, I realized the problem was a bit more complex than I initially thought.
Something that I thought about a lot when it comes to writing and publishing books is just how long it takes. My first book took me seven or eight years to write and publish (though a lot of that was my own fear and hesitance to take that next step) and the second book took roughly three or four years and this third book will be published early next year so it will have taken 3 years. I am getting faster but it still takes a long time to write and publish a book. Ideally I want to get to a timeframe of a book a year but that requires a level of discipline and focus I don’t quite have yet. Lately I’ve been trying to figure out why that is. If I’ve been writing all this time, shouldn’t it be easier? Shouldn’t I be able to just sit down and focus on writing?
When I looked back on this year, it occurred to me I think I spent either the same amount of time drawing as I did writing or even more time drawing than writing. Art is very important to me and improving is a goal of mine as well. I started focusing on improvement so that I can create more interesting book covers and also draw my characters as it makes it easier to visualize and write them. I realized that I found improving and posting art to feel more rewarding as the results were instantaneous. I immediately felt some positive feelings whenever I finished a sketch, lineart or while I’m rendering an art piece (the process of shading, colouring and essentially finishing up a piece). I could see that I was progressing whereas with writing that feeling doesn’t come until I publish the book.
What occurred to me was that this feeling of reward and satisfaction might be a huge driving factor in why I’ve been struggling to progress my writing and editing. It didn’t used to be this way but I don’t think dwelling on how things were is going to help me achieve my goals and dreams. How I am now, while not perfect, is all I got and I have to work with that. Making a longer-term creative goal feel rewarding as you progress towards it would likely make it easier to stick with it and make consistent progress. There’s that need to feel rewarded with progress so as to not feel discouraged with how long it takes to achieve that goal. I’m hoping to find something that helps to keep more consistent progress towards longer term creative goals like writing and publishing my books.
– Raphael
P.S: Sorry for abandoning Inktober, I got swept up in some other art projects with tight deadlines and I’m still rather quite slow as an artist haha.
Raph's Cozy Musings 