I finally got a decent job and decided to apply myself at work.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nStill, I tell myself and others that “Writers write!” and in recent years, I haven’t felt that productive. Oh, sure, there are many short stories, some articles, and progress on a novel, but I haven’t produced like I once did.<\/p>\n
Yesterday at work, a co-worker saw me writing on lunch break. He asked why I wasn’t out with the co-workers I usually went to lunch with before I started writing again on lunch breaks. I told him that I felt bad that I haven’t finished the current novel. I told him I needed to get back into the habit of writing regularly.<\/p>\n
When he heard that I’m working on my third novel, he asked me what the first two novels were about.<\/p>\n
I told him that my first novel was a humorous coming of age story about a family traveling cross country in a possessed station wagon. I told him about the second novel (a paranormal mystery set in 20s Chicago), and how I shelved it when I was done because I really <\/em>wanted to work on the current novel. I told him about the current novel, a story about a recently-divorced celebrity chef who moves to a small town in northern Wisconsin right as the most hated person in the tiny town goes missing.<\/p>\nWhen this co-worker wandered off and let me get back to writing, I thought about my progress in recent years:<\/p>\n
\n- I finished my first novel in 2002 while caring for my sister.<\/li>\n
- I finished my second novel after dodging brain surgery by minutes and struggling with an endocrine system gone wild in the years that have followed.<\/li>\n
- I plan to have the current novel done by late February, or early March.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
That’s a completed novel every two and a half years or so. In that time, I’ve also written travel articles, magazine articles, and many other things.<\/p>\n
Even through hard times, I write.<\/p>\n
I may not write as much as I would have liked, but still — I produced when it mattered.<\/p>\n
I know it’s very easy to get down on slow writing progress. If you’re going through hard times and knocking yourself about your lack of progress, look at what you’ve accomplished — not at what you haven’t<\/em> accomplished.<\/p>\nLike me, you might be surprised that you’re not as behind as you thought you were.<\/p>\n
In fact, you just might walk away from reflecting on your production feeling mighty damn proud of all you’ve done!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There are times I look back on my writing progress in recent years and feel like I haven’t done enough. I can come up with excuses; some of them are even valid: I spent a couple years caring for my big sister before she died from cancer in 2003. I’ve spent most of my recent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":""},"categories":[23,3,59],"tags":[18,17,5,14],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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There are times I look back on my writing progress in recent years and feel like I haven’t done enough. I can come up with excuses; some of them are even valid:<\/p>\n