Oh wow lookit this, I'm here after...er...a long time! I was going to write an educational blog but then I thought better of it and decided that a little 'what even is Katie like as a writer' was in order.
Because a lot of you know me from Twitter and sometimes my vlog on YouTube, you know that I'm a positive, upbeat person who looks like she has her shit together. And while the first two things are mostly true, the last one is definitely on an ever sliding scale. But my writing life often isn't always sunshine and rainbows and I realize I don't always talk about my struggles or daily 'writer life' or problems on twitter all that much because on twitter I'm there to cheer YOU up--not air my fears and frustrations in long thread rants. There's enough of those already and I want to uplift and support you--not drag you down or feel powerless to help someone you like.
So I've come to this blog today to throw myself on the internet and bare a little bit of my soul to you because that's how you should start up your blog after several months of silence right?
......Yeah, also you should get a drink for this one. I know I'll need one.
I'll wait.
....
..
.
You good? Me too! *clinks glass full of something sweet and possibly lethal*
Let me tell you, this half year has just been full of....a lot. Fires in Australia, fires in my state, Corona virus, protests and movements, a president trying to crumble our democracy and become a dictator, murder hornets, losing my job this week, Greenland losing it's last ice shelf. It's been.....it's been a lot. And amidst all of that I was still working, still stressed about my book that I loved but hated (up until recently) and couldn't bring myself to look at let alone finish writing, and doing everything creative that I could that would let me get away with NOT writing my book. I mean anything.
Which, unfortunately is both my genius and my curse.
Annnnd possibly a coping mechanism I've had since childhood on how to deal with anxiety. Oops.
You see, whenever I know I have to finish something I kind of....chicken out (but really it's probably anxiety that I just kind of stuff down until I can't anymore) and turn my attention to the brand new Shiny my muse'll throw at me to sooth my rising panic/despair. A brand new idea, a brand new script, a brand new song to write, a brand new gardening technique that I obviously need to implement the weekend I'm supposed to be writing. The list goes on.
And what makes it worse is that I get such a creative thrill off of the 'new thing' that I dive head first, 110% all the way in. I stay up all day and night writing, researching, getting excited for like...3 days to a week. And then reality sets in and all of the projects I'd said 'yes' to suddenly loom over me expecting to be finished NOW and I end up going straight back to the thing I was originally supposed to be working on to shirk the duties of completing now 4 other waiting things.
Then wash, rinse repeat.
So while on the one hand my stress and then procrastination enables me to get new great ideas it also means I've now set myself up for even MORE stress/anxiety further down the line. Especially when it's a group project and I get other people on board.
That isn't to say I won't finish the things I make. It just means that what was most important one day, isn't the next (or I hit a creative block) and will take far longer than I want it to. And when I have several projects going it adds to my anxiety that I was trying to avoid in the first place. And I won't even get into my perfectionist streak that comes out ONLY when applied to writing. It's....intense. If I can't do something perfectly the first or second time I become extremely despondent and feel like a failure which then leads to me procrastinate etc.
That isn't to say I won't finish the things I make. It just means that what was most important one day, isn't the next (or I hit a creative block) and will take far longer than I want it to. And when I have several projects going it adds to my anxiety that I was trying to avoid in the first place. And I won't even get into my perfectionist streak that comes out ONLY when applied to writing. It's....intense. If I can't do something perfectly the first or second time I become extremely despondent and feel like a failure which then leads to me procrastinate etc.
So how do I get past this? How do I force myself to focus on one thing to complete it and say no to the shiny things?
Part of the answer lies in knowing myself and the other is when to know to say 'no'.
And that's not always an easy thing for me. Because often times I'll get so wrapped up in projects and I'm in such a positive head space that I say "what's one more project, I can juggle this!" and say yes to things--even non writing things. Things like working on gardening vlogs and writing vlogs. Things like THIS blog and my patreon. These are all, to some extent, 'projects' to me. I love them, but they're all things that take time, creativity, and emotions for me to do and keep up and less time for writing. And let's not even get started on the amount of HOURS it takes me to just to shoot and edit a single 10 minute vlog.
But in the moment I'm feeling so good, so positive, that when I write down a schedule of it all I say "oh yeah, I can do totally do all of these things, no prob!" and don't realize I've left absolutely NO down time for myself. Then I begin to panic and either a) procrastinate or b) add even more projects on and say "I'll get to the other stuff after this."
Which is obviously not healthy.
The hardest part of it all is admitting that I overbook myself, that I can't do it all at the same time, and that I have to set projects aside. Each one seems so important and special that I feel if I say 'no' to it now I'll miss the timing and it won't be wanted. I have so many stories in my head I want to write--and so many that I've started and paused on (especially in the last year or so).
But I have to set them aside and remind myself that there is a time and place for the stories and that their time will come--even if it seems disappointing at the time.
So what am I working on right now?
Currently I have 2 stories I absolutely have to finish The Lady's Doctor (my Victorian lesbian romance novel) and Cora and the Constellation Garden (a middle grade sci-fi fantasy book). In a close third is the rest of the script for my sci-fi story style podcast and an early reader chapter book called Fiona and the Space Witch.
I try not to think about the fact that I have 3 more books to write for the Lady's Doctor series (it's a world building series) or the fact I have at least 4 to 5 books to write for the Cora series. And I TRY not to think about all of the other books I set aside that I have to come back to that a lot of people are waiting for (like my Brenna Morgan sequel--it's a trilogy, or my fantasy world novellas, or my sci-fi fantasy book, The Children of Tsitsi. See what I mean? SO many projects)
Because at the end of the day they'll get done. Eventually.
So if you follow me on twitter and you see me posting excerpts from a book I'm writing and then I go radio silent about it for a couple of weeks or switch up the excerpts from one book to another, now you know why!
Welcome to my not so perfect writing life.
Part of the answer lies in knowing myself and the other is when to know to say 'no'.
And that's not always an easy thing for me. Because often times I'll get so wrapped up in projects and I'm in such a positive head space that I say "what's one more project, I can juggle this!" and say yes to things--even non writing things. Things like working on gardening vlogs and writing vlogs. Things like THIS blog and my patreon. These are all, to some extent, 'projects' to me. I love them, but they're all things that take time, creativity, and emotions for me to do and keep up and less time for writing. And let's not even get started on the amount of HOURS it takes me to just to shoot and edit a single 10 minute vlog.
But in the moment I'm feeling so good, so positive, that when I write down a schedule of it all I say "oh yeah, I can do totally do all of these things, no prob!" and don't realize I've left absolutely NO down time for myself. Then I begin to panic and either a) procrastinate or b) add even more projects on and say "I'll get to the other stuff after this."
Which is obviously not healthy.
The hardest part of it all is admitting that I overbook myself, that I can't do it all at the same time, and that I have to set projects aside. Each one seems so important and special that I feel if I say 'no' to it now I'll miss the timing and it won't be wanted. I have so many stories in my head I want to write--and so many that I've started and paused on (especially in the last year or so).
But I have to set them aside and remind myself that there is a time and place for the stories and that their time will come--even if it seems disappointing at the time.
So what am I working on right now?
Currently I have 2 stories I absolutely have to finish The Lady's Doctor (my Victorian lesbian romance novel) and Cora and the Constellation Garden (a middle grade sci-fi fantasy book). In a close third is the rest of the script for my sci-fi story style podcast and an early reader chapter book called Fiona and the Space Witch.
I try not to think about the fact that I have 3 more books to write for the Lady's Doctor series (it's a world building series) or the fact I have at least 4 to 5 books to write for the Cora series. And I TRY not to think about all of the other books I set aside that I have to come back to that a lot of people are waiting for (like my Brenna Morgan sequel--it's a trilogy, or my fantasy world novellas, or my sci-fi fantasy book, The Children of Tsitsi. See what I mean? SO many projects)
Because at the end of the day they'll get done. Eventually.
So if you follow me on twitter and you see me posting excerpts from a book I'm writing and then I go radio silent about it for a couple of weeks or switch up the excerpts from one book to another, now you know why!
Welcome to my not so perfect writing life.
That about wraps up this segment of get-to-know-Katie but if you have any questions or want to share your writing experiences with me PLEASE do! My comment section and e-mail is always open to you guys and I love chatting with you!
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