Drama Kills Writing

Remember the rock-paper-scissors game you played as a kid?  I've got a new one and it involves reading, writing, and life.  Reading trumps writing because in order to write you must read regularly.  Writing trumps life because when writing, you have no other life.  But life and the drama that goes with it kills both reading and writing because you can't focus on reading or writing if you mind is focused on something else.

I suddenly realized this the other day because I've been trying to keep up my focus on my third novel but can't because so much else is going on in my life.  It is a huge distraction from my writing and so the work is stalled.  The only good part is that it has given me a little time to think about what I have written and let me identify new scenes to add.  But without time to add them, it's a little frustrating.

I'm sure this is only a brief up tick for me, like increased sun spot activity.  And I'm hoping other areas of my life will quiet down so I can resume my writing.  If not, I'll have to make some changes because now is my time for writing.  I've already shifted priorities in my life to focus more on my writing.  Shifting a few more won't matter if that's what I need to do.

Part of me wishes I could just jettison the things that are distracting.  But that's the equivalent of running away from them.  I really need to deal with the situations that are distracting and hope they do not become an issue in the future.

One never knows about such things.  Life is predictable in that way and it seems that the more books I try to write the harder it becomes to keep going.  I'm not sure why that is but I do seem to have more things to deal with that I did before I started Book 1.  That might be my imagination, and a faulty memory but I don't think so.  I'm pretty sure I resumed writing initially as a hobby, to fill my spare time.  But it has become a passion because, if truth be told, it is the one thing I want to do more than anything else.

But I need quiet time to write and lately I've not had that and I need to find some soon because as this point, I cannot stop writing any more than I can stop breathing or sleeping.  Time for the old thinking cap and brainstorming some ways back to writing.