When I brainstormed some ideas for my YouTube channel I thought about a writing vlog. Maybe just once a month to give an insight into my writing day. So a bit like Instagram Stories but more cohesive and not in fifteen second clips. As the month ticked over into this week, the week I’d planned to record my vlog, I got excited. Admittedly part of the excitement is because the video is unscripted which means less work - but also I like the idea of showing more of my day.
But as I was putting the first rough cut together yesterday in Final Cut Pro (the editing software I use) my excitement turned to frustration. ‘Is this all you do all day?"‘ I thought to myself. I’d recorded it on Monday earlier this week and most of the day focused on putting a questionnaire together for my non-fiction book proposal. It was research for my book BUT because it wasn’t actual writing I felt like I hadn’t done any work.
No work - yet I’d written a questionnaire based on my book idea, found a willing group of people to send it to, found a way of creating the questionnaire (Google Forms) and sent it out and started to read through the responses. I know it’s going to add a lot of weight to my proposal - yet it didn’t feel like work.
There’s a lot of mental anguish that comes with being a writer. The usual like imposter syndrome, procrastination, fear of success and failure - but there’s also, for me, this guilt thing if I’m doing something that is part of my writing project yet isn’t actual writing. It’s a reminder that writing isn’t just physically getting words on paper. It could be research - for fiction and non-fiction. It could be marketing, growing an author platform, doing your accounts, replying to emails, speaking at events…so many different things.
I know what the issue is, really. I enjoy it too much. Therefore it’s not work - and I think this is related to the whole low payment thing that writers suffer from - but that’s a whole other topic to think about.
Anyway, if you’d like to watch my Monday Writing Routine it’s here below.
