Saturday 10 September 2011

Focus

I’ve been thinking too much recently: the problem with not sleeping… It’s led me to question a lot of things that are probably best left well alone / especially in my current frame of mind. For example: if I hate my own company so much, why do I keep inflicting it on others? It’s a fair question I suppose. If I really cared about my friends why would I want to put them through that?

Stupid. I know it’s stupid but I can’t prevent thoughts like that from entering my head. And once they’re there… My head feels like it’s spinning a lot of the time. Trying to focus on what matters, the important things in life, with crap like that getting in the way: it’s not easy.

I read somewhere the other day that “the only difference between a published writer and an unpublished one is greed”. I can’t remember where I read it but it’s bugging me. There’s loads of similar quotes with different endings that I find a lot more palatable but that one has wedged itself in my conscience. I don’t think I have that greed. For me, when my writing is going well (i.e. I manage to keep at it for a while and temporarily feel like I’m actually getting somewhere) I feel the opposite. If I could ever make money out of writing it would be through laziness. Because I don’t want to have to do a ‘real’ job. Writing would be the easy way out. But then again do I want to be lazy? Neither characteristic is exactly something I want to aspire to.

Anyway, the point is that after having that quote bubbling around in my head for a while and it making me want to give up entirely; I think I’ve at least partly regained my senses. Writing’s not easy: far from it. That’s why it is always such a big deal when I do sometimes find that I can keep at a project for a considerable amount of time and actually get somewhere with it. So I’ve made a decision. I was working on a few different things, depending on my mood on any given evening. I’m not doing that anymore. I’m going to focus. Set myself targets. Daily goals. With consequences if I don’t reach them. If I don’t think I’m going to be particularly productive on, say, a Friday evening; then I need to compensate for that in advance rather than think I can make it up afterwards. That’s how I always usually end up stuck in a rut. It’s the same with exercise. If I don’t do it for a few days it’s easy to turn those few days into weeks… I’ve got to buckle down and concentrate.

I would say it all starts tomorrow. Put it off by 24 hours. But I know that if I turn the PC off now I’ll find an excuse not to turn it on again until Wednesday, or later. So it starts tonight. It’s not like I’m going to be missing out on any sleep if I end up sitting here all night. So here goes, a new project. A fresh start. If it goes well I might end up posting snippets every now and again. If it doesn’t… On to the next. One thing at a time though. Focus.