Hey Crew,

Miss me? Nah? I didn’t think so.

There reason for my radio silence is pretty simple. I didn’t feel this blog was contributing in any way to anything. So, what was the point. I was stressing out daily trying to figure out something to write and more often than not, I didn’t have anything to write, so I’d ramble. A Lot. For days.

I felt that stress of coming here daily and blogging was impacting my writing. I was stressed about what I’d put on this blog and what I’d write tomorrow, and how much progress was I making on my current WIP and was I writing up to my own expectations.

It wasn’t worth it. Yes, I had a streak going with the blog. A pretty good one, in fact. Looking back at some of my posts, sure, there was information in some, but a majority of them were long rambles with no real purpose.

So, I stopped.

It took a lot of pressure off me, I’ll say that much. In the past 4 days I’ve written nearly 13,000 words. Those are the kinds of numbers I should be doing. I should be putting down 20,000 words a week. Easily.

I wasn’t.

But my writing streak is still alive. In fact, I passed 100 days of writing daily a couple of days ago. That felt awesome. What felt really good was writing nearly 6000 words yesterday. Yes, other things did happen. I even practiced bass for a couple of hours. The words were flowing.

Today was mostly about getting Christmas decorations hung and wow, am I sore. These old knees don’t cooperate like they used to. So I’m getting a late start to writing tonight, but I know I’ll get a couple of thousand words down.

What I’m trying to say in all this, the stress of blogging every day, or even more than once per week, isn’t worth it right now. I need to keep my head down and produce some books. My Favorite Daughter is almost done with her semester and we will be working on many book covers. I’m excited about that.

I will be blogging weekly. I’ll try to have more organized thoughts and posts. Not 100% sure that’ll happen, but hey, we can hope for the best. At least, with a week going by between posts, there will be a little more actual content to talk about.

Like, I’m past the half-way point in V&A3 and cruising along. I’ve tied together Almost-Super Heroes into the V&A Universe nicely and might have to dip back into ASH1 and ASH2 to make sure I’ve got dates lined up correctly (glad I haven’t released those yet). The story is so much fun. I’ve said that before, but wow, this is such a different story for the crew of the SS Acid Rat, in a good way. It’s interesting, after reading back from V&A1 & 2 to see how I’ve evolved as a writer and how the characters have evolved as individuals.

I’m already looking forward to my next book, Giant Robot Planetary Competition 3. It’s going to be an exciting book as well and things will really start to come together with the entire arc I’m working on.

Speaking of that arc, one of the things that happened the day I stopped blogging daily and my word count dipped into the hundreds per day instead of the thousands.

I had a crisis of confidence.

I looked at what I was trying to do and thought “I can’t do this. What was I thinking?”

Things jammed up. As happens, I didn’t think I could write the words needed to complete it all. It seemed too daunting. So many books. So many words. I was just too huge and impossible.

Then I remembered what I’d told a writer friend of mine who was concerned about writing a book.

Write one word. Then one sentence. Then one paragraph. Then one chapter. And finish the book.

I took is a bit further for myself and said, finish one series, finish one arc.

I’ve seen similar advice from other authors. It’s sound advice. If you keep from writing the words, you’ll never get to your goal, no matter how big or how small.

So, that’s what I did. The day I decided to do that was actually Thanksgiving Day. We’d gone in the morning to help my sister-in-law set up for dinner (which for a Mexican family is much later in the evening) and we went home to get ready ourselves. I got ready quickly and sat to write. And Write. And WRITE!

That first day re-energizing myself, I knocked out over 4000 words while waiting for the Mrs. and My Favorite Daughter to get ready. The next two days weren’t as  fruitful, but I still sat and wrote as much as I could. Then yesterday happened.

What I’m trying to convey with all the above rambling is simple. I’m not superman. I’m not an amazing writer. I’m a simple guy with the same confidence issues many other writers have. Sometimes people need to talk through their issues. Other times it helps to just sit and bang away on the keyboard. You need to figure out what is preventing you from writing, address the issue, and move forward. Ever onward. Don’t look back at failure as failure, but as a learning experience.

It worked for me and I’m not only back on track, but moving as fast as I should be.

What are some roadblocks you’re having and what have you done to resolve them? Every writer has them, be they small or large, life changing events. There’s no shame in having to struggle now and again. As the saying goes, it’s not how many times you fall down, it’s how many times you pick yourself back up.

I’m off to go make words happen.

Until Next Time!

Stay Awesome!