I learned two new things about writing and thus about myself this week. For starters, there is a real and substantive value to writing as much as you can every day. The craft, as with most physical and mental ‘muscles’ should be exercised to exhaustion in order to create growth/strength. That being said, there needs to be a period of rest in order to heal. I’ve been doing this in part (more resting than writing) and discovered that striking an appropriate balance between both is essential to my professional and literary growth.
In laymen’s terms: I gotta write more and take a day off once in a while to rest. This doesn’t apply to the 10 minute rule, but in terms of being a professional author, I need to be producing a great deal more fiction to be noticed. Production has always been my problem. It goes hand in hand with distractions. I play games the way people in the desert drink water. I survive by moving from game to game and accomplishing artificially imposed goals. The same cannot be said of my writing where I have actual deadlines, if not goals. Those are roadblocks to me whereas the artificial barriers of game are motivational tools.
I think the key to my success in the coming year is to focus on production. I need to shape the time I have in a fashion that allows me to do more with it. This shouldn’t be a problem, because, as usual, the only person standing in my way is myself.