I was working at our horse show this weekend, and I was talking to one of my non-hobby friends and he is very familiar with my writing and likewise I am very familiar with his hobby, which happens to be rebuilding old generators (30s-60s, old iron) and collecting Cub Cadet tractors from the same period and older.
He was discussing how he had no spare time, between his job, working on his generators, and tractors, and doing repair work on his house. For a moment I was in full sympathy, as I frequently find myself in the same situation, with the job, taking care of the horses, cooking and cleaning, and my large assortment of writing projects. Then something hit me.
It doesn't matter.
The generators he fixes get set aside, and the same with the tractors, until they sit long along that they need to be taken apart, and cleaned and rebuilt because they've sat unused, because he's moved on to the next 'vital' project. In doing so he is chasing his own proverbial tail chasing after tasks that need to be done, but really don't, because there is no endgame. It would be different if at the end of the project, the end of the restoration, the generator was sold, or the tractor was sold, or it was put to a specific task, aka I need to fix this heavy tractor because I need it to plow/pull down trees/breath flame at the tractor pull, but it isn't.
In many ways my writing has been the same, an endless circle of projects, various things sitting in work, various settings I've had in work, Epoa, Imbria, the Cosmic Era, the World of Darkness, and the reflexive fantasy genre. The writing projects stack up, and some are finished, but at the end of the writing, at the end, as I am looking at the next project coming up, or looking back at an old piece to pull out of dust off, I haven't accomplished anything. There isn't an achieved endgame.
Nothing has been published.
But here is the thing, I don't feel defeated, I don't feel demoralized or depressed.
I feel like my eyes are open.
I am going to take a little time, step back from the projects I am working on, and reassessing my specific goals.
It is time to focus.