It’s time for me to admit that I have become sufficiently derailed. Work, the flu, school…I have a myriad of excuses up my sleeve and yet none of them really hit the heart of it all. I am finding that I have been 100% side tracked by the question: what do you want to say? And if I think I’ve answered that one….then it’s: how do you want to say it?
I keep rolling my half written chunks of articles and short stories over in my head and I feel as though I’ve lost my voice. As though somewhere between beginning and pausing I’ve realized that my voice has shifted, that I’m saying things that I don’t want to say, that I’m using words I don’t want to use.
So what to do now. Just wait it out? Sit around and hope that my voice comes back, or that a new voice shows up? I feel that I’m letting down my part of the bargain on writeagogo. I had grand ideas for what I would get done and planned to post some of it (really! I did plan to!). and now it’s as though I’m sitting in an empty room staring at the wall with a cold cup of coffee in my hand saying “why?”
I have continued to tell myself to “shake it off” over the past few weeks, but now I realize that I think I need to just let this feeling happen and let myself sit in it for a while (like a pig in …). From there maybe something will come.
How’s everyone else doing? It’s hard to hear you all over the deafening scratch of pencils and clicking of keyboards.
I don’t know how my experience compares, but I discovered that I’d set an unrealistic goal in trying to keep up with the Rachael’s, so to speak. Today was the first day since the challenge began that I met the 1000-word/day goal I also set. My life just isn’t conducive to three regular writing days per week.
As for the voice question, I’m sure your voice will change over time, as you yourself change. Just write when you can and let the voice be what it is. Maybe the voice you don’t like is that of one of your characters or of your narrator, who is not always you.
Best to you!
thanks Toni. that is nice to hear – someone understands. you are right that i need to just let it flow and not be concerned. it will happen if it’s meant to.
thanks again,
j
I’m just now starting to pull out of a writing funk I’ve been in most of the winter.
Sometimes you need a break.