Nope, that isn’t misspelled.
I have a problem with BIC. Butt in Chair. I have a big problem putting my butt in the chair to do the work.
It’s as though I reached my big goal of being published and that was enough. It’s not that the stories have gone away or anything, it’s just that the internal pressure is gone. I let off the gas and I’ve had a really hard time pushing back down on the accelerator.
It’s gotten so bad that the fanfiction that I used to update regularly — a once a month date that I managed to make for almost five years, just stopped being written too. It was like I couldn’t stand the thought of opening a word processing program or a blog made me just cringe.
Could it have been depression/stress/diabetes/insert reason here? Sure. Thing is, those answers all feel as though I’m lying to myself. Like I’m blaming something outside for something simpler: I achieved a goal and never set a new one.
Sure I’ve had those nifty goal posts going on, but I never really internalized a large over-arching goal.
I’m doing that today instead:
Old Goal: Be a published author. — CHECK
New Goal: Be able to sustain myself on my book sales. — EEEP I’d better get going!
So, see you on the flip side. Maybe I’ll even be blogging more. Who knows?
BitterSuites 
Goals. That’s kind of the key word. Things work better for me if I have a goal. I used to just sort of write whatever came to mind, without really thinking about why I was writing it or what it might lead to. That was also how I lived my life — just sort of going through the motions without ever thinking about the bigger pattern.
Then slowly I shifted into having goals, and it was like the world took on a different focus, as if the kaleidoscope suddenly shifts to another view and this one makes as much sense if not more than the last. I started writing with a purpose — not ‘to get published’ or ‘to make a living’ (although that would be nice) but to get a particular story TOLD, a project finished. This was at the same time as I began having more focused goals in my personal and professional lives, too, and I’m not sure if one led to the other or if it was just a sea change overall, but the goals were both intangible and real; while I wanted to finish a project — like “Codes” — the project MEANT more, somehow, too me. It had stopped being something I messed around with and began being something I had to do, had to because I wanted to.
It’s hard to explain. But I’m a more driven person now, professionally and personally, and artistically. I feel like I’m working more towards something, something that’s meaningful to me, even if it never sees the light of day and never makes a dollar.
When I used to be able to jog more (stupid bee stings & heart attacks!) I would pick out the hardest hills to run — up Bascom Hill in Madison, and once through the hills of Oakland — for no better reason than because I wanted to run up them. It was that kind of personal, intense, inner drive. I wasn’t in a race and nobody but me would ever know I’d done it, but I had to do it. That’s how I write, now: Like I’m running up the hardest hill I can find, to prove to myself I can do it even if nobody’s looking.
I sort of turned a corner somewhere last month and everything started getting done again.
I don’t know what flipped the switch, but I’ve suddenly been able to tear through my to-do list and get headed for actual goals again.
I’ve started actually trying to meet some of the goals I’ve been loosely discussing on the blog for months. I feel energized and I don’t know what iceberg shifted in my head, but it’s actually starting to work.
I always have written more to get the stories out of my head than to make someone else happy. Even in High School when I had friends who would grab my notebook as I was writing to see what had gotten updated during the slow times in class/ between classes, I was writing for myself and no one else. I think I’ve started to get back in the habit of finishing things because I want them done, not because someone else wants me to do them.
And that’s really refreshing.