Apparently when I give myself too many “every day” “every month” “every two weeks”-type tasks, I start to get overwhelmed. And rather than that overwhelmed-ness stoking a fire in me, it can kind of lead to…apathy.
It feels like the task itself is easy, but the run-up to actually beginning the task is difficult. No, the run-up isn’t even difficult for me right now. It’s the consistency part.
It can be so easy to slip off-schedule. Remember when I said I would post on this blog every two weeks without fail, for that was my sacred commitment? And I was posting every Monday, until one week I suddenly careened off into a Friday? Well, now my post is coming out on a Monday again…but it’s the Monday after the intended week. Not even because I was busy, but because I just let it slip by. I had a totally different post about 75% complete, and I could envision exactly how to complete it. I wanted to complete it and knew that would satisfy me. Then I just kind of didn’t. But…why?!
I think it really is about creeping apathy, and creeping boredom, which sits in my mind and breeds a lack of enthusiasm and fire.
But let me back up and give some concrete examples of what I’ve been doing and how I’ve been feeling about it:
The Daily Novel-Writing
One of my goals: edit my story Catgirl System for at least 45 minutes per day, every day. By “edit,” I basically mean “fully rewrite” because wow, my old drafts need a lot of rewriting. I mean, I’m forever thankful that my past self at least gave me a sturdy foundation and plot progression for these books—but there is so much work to do, and I didn’t realize that until I got this far.
So I’ve run up against the Curse of the Never-Enough Backlog: I want to have chapters stockpiled so that I’m not just dashing stuff off five minutes before release. And I have that! But as I said, it never feels like enough. I’m 20 chapters ahead of the Patreon stash, which itself is 15 chapters ahead of where the free version of Catgirl System is. But until I actually finish writing this whole series, I won’t feel safe.
This despite me being on track right now! After taking a break as a result of what can be extremely euphemistically called “shenanigans,” I’ve found more time to write. (It helps, in this regard, that a few events I mentioned as coming up this September really turned out to be happening later or not at all.) In terms of following a stable and solid plan, I’m doing nothing wrong.
Still…the dream habit of writing in the morning, when it feels easiest and lightest, has kind of abandoned me. At least, that’s how it feels. But perhaps what’s really getting in the way is…
The Daily 150-Word Jot
I have a hunch that some really common motivational advice is to chase your passion daily, improve yourself daily, because what you do daily are the things you’re most driven to improve in, excel in. And the principle makes sense, right? Practice a lot for even minutes a day and you’ll have more experience than the average person. Go up to bat enough times even in training and hitting home runs in an actual game won’t be so intimidating.
So of course it would be a great idea for me to do some kind of a brief writing exercise that targets what I see as a weakness of mine: low confidence that I can write characters with different demographics than my own. I decided to start writing short, daily pieces “about” people I’d spotted walking around, trying to write different voices and opinions than my own without worrying too much about it. Even if this doesn’t make me much better, it should at least make me a more confident writer, which I’ll take.
The problem is that I stack this on top of other dailies, and that those dailies feel essential to having a good and productive day (these two words end up being synonyms—it’s a capitalist world). Combine this with a creeping tendency to get up many minutes or an hour after I wake up and the result is:
- Wake up
- Go back to sleep
- You were only half-sleeping; wake up
- Notice time (you overslept)
- Use phone but only for five minutes, it’s okay (although nothing of value was read)
- Roll from bed
- Turn on computer and look for music to complete daily morning stretches
- Oops; became distracted looking at email, chatroom messages, and random Wikipedia article
- Play music for stretches (thirty minutes have passed)
- Write 150-word jot about a person
- Start to write the novel…wait, you can’t possibly stay in here to write that, you’ve already spent a full hour and a half bumbling around in your bedroom!
- Shower (it’s not morning anymore)
Anything that doesn’t get done in the liminal space of the beautiful morning is pushed ahead to the somewhat less desirable space of the late morning (AKA the debatable morning) or even the afternoon. That alone feels like a failure. Small successes like stretching and jotting down random-people stories are designed to put wind in my sails; missing, forgetting, or delaying any of these tasks kills that wind.
I think to solve this issue, I need to rethink my “ideal morning,” which involves realizing that I have great days with and without doing perfectly ordered tasks in the hermetically sealed chamber that is my bedroom.
And I think other good changes—like falling asleep and waking up at times I feel comfortable with, and losing the urge to grab my phone just to check the things that don’t have to be checked—might even follow naturally, just as I realize the problems and become more determined to change them.
The Daily…Generic To-Do List
Okay, a shorter note about the to-do lists I keep off and on. Sometimes these work amazingly. At their best, they help me along in my working day and keep necessary one-off tasks on my mind. But at my worst, I just write them the night before and just plain forget to register all of the tasks written on them—only marking off the stuff I had no chance of forgetting anyway, like “take a shower.”
When I feel I’m in this rut, it kinda helps me to go from making to-do lists to making “done lists”: filling in the stuff I accomplished rather than vice-versa. But I go off and on with to-do lists anyway. It’s just frustrating when “they fail me” (HINT: it’s more that I’m not using them as intended. Or I only use them at about 8 PM when my day feels practically over).
The Biweekly Post
Like I said, this post was supposed to come out last week. And if I’d stuck to my original schedule more rigorously, it indeed would’ve come out exactly seven days ago.
…Maybe this should frustrate me more than it does.
The Monthly Post
On Patreon I’ve been posting free monthly writing updates/media overviews of stuff I’ve been watching, reading, etc. It’s fun. Also, I probably need to streamline it because it always takes so long to write.
But hey, that little issue aside, I haven’t slipped on this one yet. Probably because I find it fun, and I have very different things to report on every time.
Both the monthly post and the daily 150-word jots have more variety and excitement in them than the typical chapter of Catgirl System. That shouldn’t be true, since in editing/revising/damn near overhauling these chapters, I end up making tons of substantive changes and even improvving a bunch while I’m in the middle of that writing. Yet it is!
The Trailer
Another thing I promised in my September 2024 NewsBlast was that I would work on finishing art for an animated Catgirl System trailer for forty-five minutes a day, every day, this month. At worst, I would cut that time in half, depending on whether stuff got in the way or how I felt once I got going.
Please guess how many days I ended up doing that.
On September 1st, I worked on finishing art for that trailer for about…thirty minutes? Yeah, I think thirty. I lost enthusiasm because drawing cat anatomy (even something cartoony that approximates it) was tripping me up, and also because I wasn’t sure how much detail to put into the finished work. That got me worrying about whether it would turn out good.
And then instead of addressing these issues, I just kinda said to myself, “Whatever, the most important thing is the writing. So let’s just focus on that.”
I did, and I am, and yet this is still frustrating and nagging at me. If I don’t draw it now, when will I ever? And wouldn’t it be amazing to finish it ASAP? Still, even if I do confront those problems, get honest with myself, and really buckle down…it seems like it’ll be doomed to fail just because it’s yet another daily task. The more I do in a day, the more I feel stifled.
But then how do I commit to things like this—a project that I do earnestly want to finish—and maintain at least some regular work? I don’t really know…
The ?Irregular? Art
This last thing isn’t a regular post or piece. It’s just a catch-all category for Catgirl-related things, which I have sworn to upload on Patreon for those who pay the ‘treon.
But much like how there are unspoken rules behind Catgirl System, there’s an unspoken schedule for this. It is…”at least once a month.” The reason: because I’ve also committed to making banners for the monthly NewsBlasts, and the banners show lineart for art in progress.
Some months there’s been more than one, but I’ve found myself hitting that baseline more than I would like recently. In an ideal world of unabashed creativity, where I feel more talented at drawing the anatomy of cats, I’d be dashing off more sketches and finished pieces alike for the story.
But man, I’ve set up so many things that I “have to get around to.” As apathy and boredom with all of these things sets in, I’m doing them less for sheer passion and enthusiasm and more because my past self told me it would be good to do.
And yet…and yet…why can’t I have both? Can’t I have enthusiasm AND a fairly regular output? Many artists would say no, that you can’t guide passion or inspiration.
My response is, okay, maybe you’re right about that, but I can at least find some minor fun in the process. I can at least get my mind to a place of some relaxation. Right? Right?!
I Can Have It All…?
Some mindsets are illusions I make myself. Am I mainly bored and in a rut because I choose to describe myself as “bored and in a rut”? If I take greater strides actively search for the fun in the things I’m doing, could that help?
Two things, at least, are for certain:
- You can’t do everything in one day. Different people will have different limits for how many daily tasks they can do every day, and what kinds, and how tired they have to be to skip them. It would be theoretically great if you could catch up with world news and write 750 words and dedicate the afternoon to drawing practice and hit the gym and remember to call your mom. But that’s tough to do, let alone maintain.
I used to have zero discipline as a writer. In high school, I was flaky, infrequent, and rarely developed ideas I thought were good—maybe because I feared the commitment. College forced me to produce weekly…which had been unthinkable. Now I don’t have that fear of a blank canvas. No, I have totally different issues (as stated above). But some things, I’ve improved upon. I have no reason to believe more things won’t be. - When the habit feels more like a rut, you might have to break it. I wrote outside this afternoon, and like…wow. This idea is nothing new, but changing your environment can help refresh your mind. I love writing in my room, but I don’t love intending to write but then getting pulled away to random forgettable internet business before feeling I need to speed off to a shower.
Now Here’s My Standard Writing Progress Update
Yeah, um, going good. Nothing much to report. Oh, I do finally need to start drawing more maps for upcoming Patreon chapters, but I don’t think that’s as scary as my subconscious mind is making it out to be. It’s not like I’m drawing completely new assets (…if I remember right).
The end of Book 3 is in sight! That does feel good to say. It should be a fun climax to iron out. After that, I’ll have to hurtle into Book 4 to avoid feeling crushed and crunched by the shrinking backlog. Or maybe put it on temporary pause? But I don’t think people would like that—there are SO MANY online projects that get delayed into eternity, and I don’t blame readers who see the first signs and drop out immediately. I’d rather not cause any more of that.
I guess that’s all I’ve got to say this time around. Thank you for reading, and Patrons, thank you for Patreonning.
For more motivational writing talk (okay, maybe this was just a self-autopsy), learn how to stop going for the easy win and buckle down for harder-yet-vital tasks. Or learn how YOU…YES, YOU…can benefit from blue boxes. Wait, that one’s not motivational.