I keep forgetting what I’m supposed to be doing.
I keep trying to write a novel. I made a deal with myself that I would pull back from that goal for the time being, and yet I continue trying to choose one of the projects I’m tinkering with and force it into shape. Last night I tried to split Amaranth up into its original two novels, and it didn’t go well. Basically, there’s not enough left of the storyline I took out to make a whole novel, and I’d have to work out a plot from the ground up. I think the lifelong-love element I was missing from the current incarnation of Amaranth is going to have to wait for a different novel, because it just doesn’t have enough oomph to encourage me to start yet another unfinished novel from scratch again. My Muse is recalcitrant; it doesn’t believe I’ll ever finish anything, so why give me more ideas to just stick in a drawer?
I also promised myself that I would read. Here’s a sad state of affairs: Whenever anyone asks me, “Have you ever read so-and-so?” the answer is almost always no. I’ve usually heard of so-and-so, I’ve meant to get to so-and-so for ages, but have I read them? Nope. This is true both in and out of my genre.
When I was in high school I read tons of Romance novels. But that was quite awhile ago, so now I’m not even familiar with Romance. It’s a problem in two ways: Not only does my subconscious tend to produce Romance plotlines, even though I’ve moved away from Romance and don’t find writing it personally rewarding, but I’m almost completely unfamiliar with my own genre, Fantasy. The authors I have read extensively are Tolkien, Lewis, Rowling, and McKillip, along with a smattering of individual novels by other authors. I never have any idea what’s going on in my genre, except that vampire books are popular and I don’t care for them. I don’t think this is good.
I have to keep reminding myself that my purpose right now is to write for enjoyment, and to read to make up for lost time. I’ve learned that I’m a faster reader than I thought, but that I rarely take time to read. I feel guilty, I feel like I have to justify it, and it doesn’t directly make money, which is, you know, necessary to live. Especially now that I’ve opted only to recommend and not to review, it’s unlikely reading will earn me any coin. But still, I have a goal to catch up on Fantasy. I don’t know exactly what that means, except that I want to look around when I’m standing in Barnes & Noble and know what’s actually inside most of those books. I think that’s kind of ambitious, but I’d like to try.
It’s weird how I’m more resistant to doing pleasant things for my art than suffering for it. Intellectually, the suffering seems more likely to result in finished novels, but it hasn’t worked for me so far. Maybe it’s that whole carrot person vs stick person theory of rewards and punishment. It would be hard to say I’m “goal-driven” but I think you could say I’m “end result oriented”? Which may be saying the same thing, but in a less Type-A Personality sort of way.
