Lots of reasons surfaced this week for setting aside a writing project. The most important occurred today. I scrolled through the document where I had copied/pasted half of the education blog posts. Grouped kind of together based on the content of each post, or what remained of the post since I deleted sentences and phrases that weren’t helpful, I read through the first couple of pages. And what I noticed in my head, my heart, and my body gave me my answer.
I noticed some wording that still needed to change. I wanted the information to be evergreen, and some still referenced the pandemic and blogging. When I looked at what would be left if I continued to delete, I thought it would be nuggets, perhaps, but then most of the words I’d deleted would need to be replaced with other words in order for it to make sense. I write fiction from the beginning to the end. Someone told me once I fit the definition of a “linear discovery writer”. Whatever the label, my process has worked for 50 published titles and countless other flash fiction pieces and story starters. I know sometimes what we need to do is hard. But I don’t think this project should be in that category.
When I considered the work involved in trying to put this together with what I had, or at least going about it in the way I’ve set it up thus far, my heart dropped. Since January, I have found myriad other tasks to do besides get this project done and published. I barely have three tasks on my daily to-do list because I’m accomplishing that instead of this writing project. My heart/gut pinched at the idea of pouring hours into this project and likely not being satisfied with it (at least in its current form with my current thoughts about how to do it). I’m choosing this opportunity to set this project aside. I’m not under contract. No one is relying on this book to be completed by a deadline.
A writer friend told me once that she cleaned the baseboards in her house to avoid finishing a project. My body, with contraction in my chest and gripping in my belly and tension at the top of my shoulders every time I tried to work on this project told me that the way it is now is not workable. That doesn’t mean I won’t ever publish this project in some form (a book, a series of articles, an infographic, etc.). But for now, because I have a choice, I’m not working on it.
In contrast, I opened the spiral notebook with the beginning of book 3 in the Waldman Investigations series, The Syndicate. I used the edits on the hard copy to make the changes on the digital file. With a couple of tabs open to research rivers in the Tampa area and names of bridges, then referring to my story workbook for details about the main characters, I was relieved when the movie started playing in my head. The cramping in my belly disappeared. My heart felt light. Excitement for writing, which I haven’t felt in a year, convinced me what I need to do. I’m setting down the blog book and following the excitement for this fiction story.
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