Guilt in writing. Have you ever experienced it? I think I’ve been living it and didn’t even realize it was a problem.
I was thinking about it last night (when I should have been sleeping) and I realized that I’m actually feeling guilty about my writing, or more specifically, guilty that I have so many outstanding projects to finish (and so many on the horizon to start).
Guilt from unfinished projects
Let’s talk about unfinished project first, shall we? If you have visited this site at all over the past couple years, you have almost certainly seen the progress bar on my homepage. I put that bar there both to keep you, my readers, informed on book progress and to poke myself to write more.
Champ McKay, one of my Wattpad novels, has been sitting at 33% for a number of years. It only got occasional attention because I had projects that were under contract and Champ is available for free read. Paid versus free certainly impacts priority. Still, it needs/deserves to be finished.
Mik Murdoch 5 – the first draft has now been complete for months. It has been six years since the last Mik Murdoch book was published. I MUST get this book finished this year. I always intended to write six books in this series with possible other series to come from it. My target audience who started the series are grown up now without things being done. Obviously, more youth in my target demographic will come around but this needs to be finished.
Jack Kane 3 – My co-author and I are about a third done this book. It needs to be finished. The sad thing is, when we get on a roll, it goes really fast. Like, finished in a month fast. But we are both facing different priorities.
If I were honest with myself, I could probably finish all three this year. I just need to buckle down and do a little every day.
Guilt from projects that need to be started
I have a couple series that need sequels.
Outkast Klub – I’ve had the major plot for book 2 in my head for a couple years. Book 1, first draft took me 4 weeks to write. This book should have a sequel and soon.
The Goddess Renewed – I always intended for this to be a trilogy. Book 2 has been sitting in my mind for more than a decade. Time to get it written.
These two books represent a larger investment of time but the series need to be continued. I need to formulate a plan and act on it for each one.
Guilt from works that should be published
This is much different. I have some books that are done. Like done done, ready to see print. Specifically, two books I wrote for Wattpad. GalaxyBillies 1 & 2. They are fun books that I enjoyed writing (and podcasting in the case of book 1). They deserve to be available to readers.
The amount of time it would take to make these books a self-published reality is pretty minimal but needs to be done.
Conclusion
As you can see, there is a lot of guilt in my life that I hadn’t even realized was there. I have ideas I would like to write that didn’t even make the list here. Rather than putting those ideas off forever (which would be easily done), I’ve got to make a comprehensive plan for the stuff I’ve already mentioned. Get those books written and then I can move to other things.
Do you run into feelings of guilt too? How do you deal with them? I have a busy life like many of you do but I’ve got to find a few minutes (like 30) every day to plug away. I can write fast so 30 minutes could potentially represent 1,000+ words of new content every day. Even 100 words per day will add up.
Wish me luck.
