Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Getting Carried and Forgetting Goals

Don't forget to see the forest, it's not just the trees! - photo by Kenneth Baruch


Being a writer and writing is wonderful; planning to try and survive from writing alone is also great. However, before that happens, we all need some other means of survival, that is, we need to do something and earn money. And, of course, there could also be health issues (ours or of someone we care for), there's purchasing groceries, doing laundry, cooking, and all the other household tasks which need to be done. It is very possible to get carried with one thing, such as finding a way to earn money, preferably by doing something you like, and to forget what was the goal: writing.

Sure, if I'm to be a writer, I need to stay alive, that is, to avoid starving to death, so earning money is important. And various other tasks do need to get done. But it's far too easy to get carried in numerous other things and to forget to write. To forget what was the main goal, and what was the big picture. Like not seeing the forest for the trees, all these trees you keep bumping into or avoiding them and forgetting there was actually an entire forest around you.

In January, I lost my regular income which I was earning by writing articles. A friend found me a novel to translate from Croatian to English, but that was only a temporary solution. Then I started translating for a publishing house - it was my first time to translate an entire novel from English to Serbian. I didn't know if I'd be good enough. I didn't know if they were going to like it - if they did, they might give me novels to translate on regular basis, but what if they didn't?

While translating, and doing various small tasks, and worrying, I was barely writing. And one day I realized that. The novel was almost translated. After a day's work of translation, I was tired. But I remembered I should be writing, remembered some ideas I had, and wrote some short stories.

Now I keep writing. I have some plans - a ghost story collection, a collection of Sf/fantasy stories about others and human relationship with what they perceive as the Other (Cold is one of those stories, only in Serbian version), and I'm also thinking about a third story collection, the one gathering all my stories about cats. And there's this idea about a non-fiction book about cats which went through my life.

I'm not writing all of that at once, but I am writing stories for the ghost story collection and for the Other collection. The third one will come out of these two and of my first story collection, the published one, and the non-fiction.... I'll write that one too, at some point.

Most important, I intend not to forget to write again. Because writing is my forest, and I want it to be a big, enjoyable one, not something that shrivels and dies. I'm not quite sure yet how I'm going to achieve that not-forgetting, but I'll do it.

And hopefully see a plenty of my books published.


8 comments:

brenda said...

Tis the curse of being a writer, conflicting priorities, like food, family, demands, lovers, etc., I don't have any wonderful magical words of wisdom excpet to carve out time for you - make a daily date with yourself and never break it.. It was something I started a couple of years ago. It was very hard at first, but now, it's a part of my life .. Best with your writing.. Keep going, from one writer to another.

angel011 said...

Thank you, your words are much appreciated.

Anonymous said...

You're not alone in finding day to day life crowding out your writing.

Make time for it. Even if it's just 15 minutes every night before you go to sleep, or quiet time every morning with a cup of coffee.

That little bit goes a long way to keeping the fire alive. :)

angel011 said...

A little bit of time doesn't work for me, because I prefer to write the entire piece in one sitting (doable because I write short stories), but getting some time for writing once or twice a week seems to wrok fine - if I don't forget to do it.

Thanks for dropping by!

Bella said...

Ivana, given you write short stories, you could plan to commit to short term goals, like say, writing one short story a week, for example. Anything that keeps you motivated and in the writing cycle. Life can get in the way of what we want to do but if we plan accordingly, we can make it happen. Keep at it!

angel011 said...

Bella, I tried that, but somehow I keep refusing to stick to that sort of a plan. With me, it's more like not writing for a while, and then writing three stories in a week.

Samantha Sotto said...

I hear you. Carving out time for writing is challenging. Hang in there. Your forest is waiting :-)

angel011 said...

Thanks!

The forest is here, but the trees keep jumping out... :)