Goodbye, Schedule!
It’s Friday morning. She sits down at the laptop, cracks her knuckles dramatically, and dreams about the incredible Saturday-morning post she’s about to write. Then she poises her fingers above the keys, wracks her brains…
…and finds nothing but dread awaiting her.
This is me. Or it was, last month. And the month before that.
You see, I did something incredibly daring. I announced to the entire world—well, the part of the world that subscribes to The Bookwyrm Corner, that is—that this year, to help me post consistently and keep me supplied with an overflow of interesting but relevant topics to write about, I would be following a systematic posting plan.
Which then consequently drained me of all my will to write.
It turns out that I function better when I leave myself a little bit of free rein.
In limiting myself to relevant topics only, I made things very uninteresting for myself. And when I get bored, writing just isn’t fun anymore.
Yes, it was surprisingly interesting to learn about Charles Dickens. And I was looking forward to spotlighting some other authors, such as Jules Verne and Jane Austen. But the fact that I enforced it upon myself so heavily, with very little room for change… that wasn’t great.
My Substack blogging, which I have always enjoyed, became a chore.
And I don’t want my writing to ever be something I do just because I have to.
Published writers, I hear you laughing on the other side of your screen. So I will point out to you, I put the little word ‘just’ in there.
Of course I will write because I have to, one day. That’s to be expected if I’m going down the publishing books route. But if there stops being another reason why I write—if because I have to becomes the only reason—then I will stop pursuing it as a career. I will find something more ‘realistic,’ something more likely to support me financially.
For your information, I don’t anticipate that ever happening. I love writing and have loved writing for as long as I can remember.
But, sidetrack aside, when I realized that I had taken the fun out of something that was only ever meant to be a labour of love, I had to re-evaluate.
After more than a month of zero posting, I returned, re-evaluation complete.
Goodbye, schedule!
The verdict? I’ll try my best to stick to my weekly posting on Saturday mornings, Australian time of course. I won’t beat myself up if I occasionally miss a week.
But the weekly topics I’ve been enforcing upon myself? They are officially gone, most likely never to be seen again.
Yes, this will mean that there will be weeks when I have no idea what to post.
But honestly… the chaos that results from a rush job can sometimes be the most fun of all. I mean, look at my post Your Words Matter. That was a rush job, written at 10pm the night before I posted it. And I received some of my best feedback from that post.
So. You might have read all the way down here and be thoroughly bored that all I’ve done is ramble on about how I’m changing my posting methods. If so, I apologise. Chances are good that it will happen again.
If you’re still reading, I commend you.
And if you have ideas for what you’d like to see me post in the future, comment them! I cannot guarantee that I will use any of your suggestions, but I will read every single one, and they will marinate in my brain… until eventually something flavoursome happens!
Until the next terrible metaphor, or chaotically unresearched post—
May every story be incredible—
Emily B.
I cannot wait ;) :D
I relate to this. I am learning to give myself spaces to be free in my writing. I flourish there. I struggle with the scheduled and put in a box writing. I do it when I need to but I realized some of my writing was my best when I wasn’t in the scheduled box, so good for you! I will be reading.