Frustration

That is the word to describe my morning today.  I reached a level of frustration that I haven’t felt since before I began this journey of becoming an author.

The last few weeks I have been trying to get my second book going.  I have a great idea and I know what I want to do, but each time I sit down to type I simply can’t get the ideas going.  Over the last week or so, I have felt that I’m forcing the story right now, and that’s not at all what I want to do.  I simply cannot get into a groove with this story and this morning was my breaking point with it.

Last night I spent hours working on various aspects of writing.  I read over parts of my first book and made some slight changes.  I did a few minor updates to this website.  I sat with the second book and scratched out two paragraphs.  It was frustrating and tiresome.  Chris had to listen to me talk about how frustrated I am and he finally convinced me to put it to the side for the night.

This morning I got up nice and early to get some time in before the kids got up and the insanity of motherhood and marriage began.  I opened my 2nd book thinking I was going to build off of what I wrote last night and boy was I wrong.  Instead I read over what I wrote last night and decided I’m drained from this book. I do not like where it is going and how much it is occupying my mind.  I made the decision that this book is getting shelved for now, no pun intended.  Alright, maybe the pun was intended.

The research I have done over the last few months on how to become an author, how to get published, and getting my ideas out there have all repeatedly told me how common it is for authors to work on multiple pieces at once.  Frequently authors will take years to put a story together.  To not get disappointed if it takes a long time to get through a book.  One idea that I read and have found extremely helpful is to keep a journal, notebook, scratch pad, whatever works for you, for each book that you are working on.  I have a notebook that I write in when ideas come to me.  Some are various ideas and some are specific to the story I’m working on.  When I wrote my first book I used the notebook to write one of the most challenging scenes in the book.  I was working out how to get through the challenging scene and writing down different characters and their respective role within the scene and subsequent chapters.  As I was writing about the characters, the scene itself came to me and I wrote it out while it was in my mind.  This was about 3 chapters before that scene was going to take place.  Once I was ready for that point in the book, I had a lot of it written down already and was able to get it into the story with relative ease.

With the second book I started with my notebook and got the book going.  But I have simply hit a wall that I don’t want to push through right now.  The notebook is there for me to add to whenever I want, and the first four chapters are in my chrome book.  Perhaps one day I will go back to it.  Or maybe it is meant to be a part of another story.  Only time will tell.

Once I came to that decision, I decided I would spend what was remaining of my free time working on this site.  I put on some music and I opened up the site to start this very blog.  That is when I discovered that I wasn’t connected to the internet and I had no way of fixing it.  Chris who is not only my husband but also our house I.T. guy, was still sleeping and I didn’t want to bother him. I was frustrated, mad and ready to give up on everything.  I went back to my first book, figuring I would spend some time editing the obvious mistakes.  This led to another frustration when I realized how far away I am from that book getting published in some manner.

I sat there staring at my chrome book with frustration building in me.  I got up early to get work done and 2 hours later I barely made any progress. Doubt started creeping in again about if I could actually do this. The last 4-5 hours that I spent working on writing had been a disaster.  And now I was practically out of time to get anything accomplished.  At the very least I needed to find out why the internet wasn’t working, so you guessed it, Chris got woken up.  Although it wasn’t that bad, it was close to the time for us to get our day started.

Unfortunately, it was not a simple fix, which at least made me feel better that I didn’t wake up him for something that I should have been able to figure out on my own.  But it also meant that I was officially done for the morning while Chris figured out the technical difficulty.

At that point I did what anyone would do…no it’s not pour a drink.  Remember it’s early in the morning and mom mode is about to go into full effect.  If this happened at 8:00 at night when we were in for the night, the drink would have been poured while the problem was occurring!  But it was more like 8:00 in the morning. That’s not the way to start the day! I picked up my phone and texted my friend Tiffany, who is helping me stay sane through this whole process.  Panic mode had officially set in and Tiff once again talked me through it and reminded me that there are going to be setbacks and I have to roll with it.  To keep pushing through everything and to quiet my mind.  Frustrations are a normal part of the process and that I should write about it. Once again she got me through a difficult time. Like I said, she is keeping me sane through this process.

I spent the day with my son at a tennis match, which I found to be very calming and it helped me clear my mind.  I came up with a new plan and on our way home I stopped at the library to request a few books that I need in order to do research and get a better understanding of where I think I should go with my work.  When I finally got home and had time to write I was able to start a new story. This story is clear in my mind and I have a path set out for it.

Frustration is a very normal part of being an author.  But it can’t define you or feed into your fears of writing.  Everyone has the ability to write a story, it’s pushing yourself through the challenges that gets the story across the finish line.  Today I looked past my frustration and turned it into something positive.  I also reminded myself that it’s okay to ask for help.  My friends and family are there to help me and I cannot achieve this on my own.