Day 9: Distraction from

The last two days I’ve kept up with my word count goal, but just barely. I’m getting distracted and staying distracted.

Because I’m on a journey of figuring out WHY I have these problems rather than simply beating myself up for them, I started asking questions.

What it came down to is this: I need to figure out what I’m letting myself (or even wanting to get) distracted from.

It’s not like the distractions, at least the ones I’m spending time on, are appealing in and of themselves. I didn’t care about the content of the YouTube shorts before, during, or after I watched them. And still, I spent an embarrassingly long time just scrolling.

So here’s what I can think of that I may be running from:

• Impostor syndrome fears, such as, “What makes you think you’re actually going to write something good?” This is likely exacerbated since I’m reading some books right now in a similar genre.

• A few “boring” scenes. I may be dragging out this specific part of my story more than necessary. It may help to remind myself that I can just skip to a scene I want to write and come back later to the boring ones.

• Fear of the revision (already). I know there’s no path forward that doesn’t include a revision, and there’s likely a part of me that is considering the monumental effort and time of re-writing. Except, that’s the job.

Here’s what I’ll do:

• Acknowledge that the distraction isn’t (and won’t be) worth it.

• Fix the problems I can (such as skipping to fun scenes).

• Remind myself that every book I’ve ever loved has started as a shitty first draft and probably persisted as a slightly-less-shitty second draft.

• Set aside all thoughts of the revision until the draft is complete. First things first.

• Start outlining the next book in the series as a productive mental switch I can make when this draft becomes difficult.

Here’s to a more focused tomorr.w