Do you ever get one of those days…?

Photo by: pigpogm

Do you ever get one of those days when you feel you’re up against a brick wall. I feel like I’ve been working on my writing career since the beginning of January, and I don’t have anything to show for it.

So I’ve had to really work hard at finding the positives. And I’ve come to a couple of decisions.

Positive things for where I am now.

• I have this blog up and running. It’s not a great blog (yet!), but it’s up and running, and I’m updating it fairly regularly. It does reflect where my writing career is at, and that’s going to be pretty interesting for me afterwards to look back on.
• My Costa Rica blog is up and running. I’ve had this running for ages, but it is a good body of my writing, and when it was sent to people in email form the feedback was very positive.
• I know a lot more about the freelance writing world than I did when I began. Just because I don’t have a lot of productive output doesn’t mean that I’m not learning all the time. I have a lot of information learnt that I didn’t have at the start. This is like learning a whole new business, so I can’t expect results all the time.
• I have a much greater knowledge of blogging platforms. The Costa Rica blog (which is really going to turn into a travel blog as my next travels will be elsewhere) is on Blogger, and this blog is on WordPress.com. I’m going to set up a new blog next week on wordpress.org next week, which will have its own hosting, and when I do that I’ll have a great deal learnt about blogging.
• I still have my health. Let’s not forget the really important things.

I’m not the sort of person that can confidently push myself forward when I’m not confident about my work. I really do feel that in time I’ll be able to be a good writer. But I need to work hard to hone my craft, and I’m going to have to get myself into a situation where I can be confident that I’m capable of delivery of good quality writing, before I can really push myself into full marketing mode.

I think I’ll get there slowly, but it’s better than not getting there at all.

So my decisions, for now, are.

• Set up Gable Logger blog on wordpress.org. This is just a gay news blog that I’ve had in mind for a while. It will help me write comic links to gay news stories, and I’ll see how it goes.
• Continue with this blog. I’ll continue to chart my writing progress on this blog.
• Update the Travel Blog. I think I’m going to have to get a proper name for this blog. But basically I’m going to get it updated and do one weekly update concentrating on my life and travel plans in particular.
• Go back to The Writer’s Bureau course. I enrolled in The Writer’s Bureau many years back, and I still have lots of assignments to do. It provides a good framework to follow in getting some freelance income, and I think I’ll do better with a framework than flailing around like I am.
• Read more. I’m going to read more. I have loads of books upstairs, and I heard someone on radio saying yesterday that good writers are also good readers. So I’m going to take time out in the day to start ploughing through a lot of those books.
• Relax and enjoy it. I’m only doing all of this because I really believe that I’m going to enjoy a life of writing and working for myself. If I don’t sit back and enjoy it, what’s the point. I might as well go back to the day job!
• Rationalise my blogs in time. I’m going to have time for the blogs for now, but I know that I’m going to have to see how they go in terms of readers, and when I know what ones are working and that I enjoy I’m afraid I’m going to have to drop the others.