Writer's Guilt

Welcome back to Taylor Talks!

Do you ever feel guilty for abandoning a project for a little while? I'm starting to get angry with myself for not working on my novel.

The last time I worked on my book, we still lived in New York. That was at least two months ago, maybe longer. At first, it made complete sense that I wasn't working on it; we were moving from New York to Florida and there was a lot going on! There was packing to do, and any time I tried to sit down at my computer, my mom would ask me why I wasn't putting more stuff into boxes.I would try to sneak some time in to write, but the only time I could ever sit for a good period of time was at the end of the night when I would blog and then go to bed because I was exhausted.

Then we moved, and of course I couldn't write during the trip down because I was driving my own car. Again, there was nothing I could do about that, and I would squeeze in some time for a blog post when we stopped for the night but then I was too tired to do anything else. Of course, once we got to our new house, there was no time for anything because we had to unpack and make the house livable. The priority was on getting the kids ready for school, and I just never had any time to collect my thoughts and write.

Now we've been here for a while. Next week marks two months since we moved in, actually. Don't get me wrong, my mom will be the first to point out that I still have plenty to unpack and put away. But I have plenty of time to go on the computer each day, and I've actually had my manuscript open on my computer every day for a few weeks now. The only problem is that I now have a huge case of writer's block.

I can't believe that I finally have some time to work on my book, especially during the day when the kids are at school, and I still can't get anything accomplished! I've re-read pieces that were already written and tried to do some editing, but even that hasn't helped at all. I've re-read the same pages over and over so much that I'm starting to get annoyed with them. It's making me crazy, because we're now approaching the middle of September and I had promised myself back in January that my entire first draft would be completed by 2016. I knew going into it that this was a huge promise and it would be hard to fulfill, but I also knew that I needed a crazy promise like that to keep me on track and motivate me.

It looks like I'm going to have to sit myself down and force myself to work on this novel. I'll go back to the very first page if I have to, in order to re-read the entire novel and get my thoughts flowing again. My dad asked me tonight if I've been making any progress on the book, and it felt awful to admit how long it's been since I worked on it. I want to feel good about myself, and know that I'm accomplishing something incredible, even if it's only a paragraph a day. I just hope that the creative part of my mind can keep up with what the rest of me wants to do!

Thank you so much for your continued support! I look forward to sharing more stories about my experience with foster care, and hopefully hearing from readers who have questions or similar stories to share. I'm always willing to answer questions and hear about other experiences! Please don't forget to like and share my Facebook author page as well!

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Thanks!
Taylor

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