WIDOW For Long Periods

Personal tragedies, or difficulties of any kind make it difficult to focus on maintaining good routines. As usual, once I get thoroughly up and running with something beneficial, something in life happens which draws me away. This time is no different, but I am anxious to get back at it before another year passes with no progress. 

Writing every day is certainly a commitment, and one which is deceptively difficult. I remember losing my job and making the decision to write full time. I thought it was going to be silly. Writing a book, after all, was going to be easy. I'd have it done in a matter of three months or less. I was convinced. Mostly because I had never tried to write a book before. The experience was educational, of course. 

The second time around I was prepared for the difficulties and I attacked the process with a great deal more vigor. I also had some residual shame for motivation since the first time around I had misused my time so badly. I think I did much better on the second book. Now, however, there has been a long gap between the second and the third because I've allowed the many different situations of life to be a discouragement to me. 

It always happens the same way. Something in life happens which is a distraction. Mostly because it entails legitimate needs and requires some amount of attention. Then, things go downhill from there. It becomes easy to set writing aside when there are more important concerns at hand. It isn't easy to find new opportunities to write. Then, with weeks of excuses behind you, writing has fallen by the wayside and it becomes increasingly difficult to get back into the process. It becomes harder to train one's brain to think in the correct way.

And then a few years go by, and you feel less like a writer every day. You are less a writer every day. In the end, writing becomes a fond memory and a strong desire. But the process has left.

The only cure is to get back into the process. Which is hard. It is worth it though. Even though I am not actually writing anything related to the third book, just writing is a reasonable first step, and I am taking it.