Unfortunately this time of year is hell on my productivity. Some of my favorite authors have new books out. It all started with Robert Galbraith’s “Troubled Blood“. I tore through almost a thousand pages in three days. And now there’s Joe Abercrombie’s “The Trouble with Peace“, and several more books sitting on my teetering to-read pile, clamoring for attention.
I seem to be a person who doesn’t do things by half measures. When I read, I binge-read. When I get hooked on a TV series, which fortunately happens only about once every five years or so, I binge-watch (I’m looking at you, Dr. House!). And now that I’ve finally read all five Game of Thrones books, I’m almost scared of starting to watch the series. [Edit: I was right to be scared.] A box set is a dangerous thing. It might throw a serious wrench in my writing. Not to mention my sleep patterns.
What to do?
I’ve tried setting limits. Page limits. Time limits. Not doing. Arbitrary limits don’t work for me, even if I’ve set them myself. I guess I’ll have to let the addiction run its course and just make sure that I leave enough time between books that I’m getting at least a modicum of writing done.
I’m in the process of finishing an advanced draft of my current work in progress and then sending it off to a new beta reader. And, no, I’m not procrastinating because I fear sending my work out. On the contrary. I love getting feedback and doing rewrites and revisions. I know. I’m weird. It’s not that I don’t have an ego (ask anyone who knows me well), but when it comes to writing, my ego somehow dissolves into the rush of disovering how to make my work stronger.
So I’ll take this space between books to work on my draft. And then I’ll reward myself with the next book on the pile. Forget any house-cleaning or other non-essentials for the foreseeable future. October will be mostly binge-reading and binge-watching. And then, in November, it’ll be binge-writing. NaNoWriMo, here I come.