Blogging to avoid life and deadlines

You may know this about me, but I write. My current WIP has a deadline, not a deadline imposed by an editor or agent or even a loved one, but by me. June 23 I need to have the first draft finished. My plan is to sit in Starbucks while my daughter is in daycare and finish it on Monday. (Today) You will be updated on how well the planned worked.

I will tell you at this moment, my daughter is asleep, my husband is out of the house, my laundry is done (almost) and this is the perfect moment to be writing. But I am not. Why? Because of the aforementioned plan. I will be away from the internet for a little while but I want to make sure I have my blog updated and ready to go.

So here is what today's entry is all about. THE GAME! Watch this video and then come back to me.




If you can't watch the video because you're firewall at work won't let you, (for shame for blogging at work--- totally kidding) I will recap. Hank Green tells his viewers about this game called The Game. If you think about The Game, then you lose The Game. All desire ends in lose. The only way to win The Game is not to know about The Game. The Game can be anything. If you're living for it, you'll never win.

Wow depressing right?

Sort of.

Is he right? Yeah.

Right now on my hard drive there are 3 (almost 4) manuscripts. How many of them have been published? None. How many of them will I try to get published? Don't know. See for writers The Game is publication. But then there's all this crap after publication. Let's say you're lucky/talented enough to get an agent and that agent sells your book. Now the real work begins. You have to face the public, criticism (worst then anything you think about your book, because we are our own worst critics-- nope there are people out there who get paid to read books and write their comments on them) Then there's the internet trolls who get off by being mean.
Then you have to face your fans. If you're lucky enough to have any.

Then your book gets moved from the new release section to the shelves and before long it in the bargain bin, where books go to be forgotten and die.

Now your agent and your publisher and your fans want a follow up. Pressure is mounting and this wasn't why you got into writing in the first place. Was it? Did you just lose The Game?

For the record, my heart goes out to any writer who's book explodes over night and Hollywood comes calling for a movie that goes to number 1 and breaks box office records. Worst of all when Hollywood remakes you book and does it better then you could. (True Blood I'm looking in your direction) The fame might be nice but the pressure has got to SUCK. <-that was NOT meant to be a vampire joke.

Writers, readers, friends, family, I ask you this, are you playing The Game? What are you playing The Game for? Are you willing to lost The Game? Winning does not mean happiness. Happiness does not mean winning.