Month: November 2021

Art is Warfare: A Status Report

Abstract photo in hues of blue by Mihaela Limberea.
Speed. © Mihaela Limberea 2021

Am I still writing a book? Sure I am. And I’ll tell you a secret: it’s good I’ve decided to document my journey publicly; it forces me to continue even when I’m tempted to give up, to be honest. I can’t think of a better way of staying the course as a writer. Only I wouldn’t give up, of course. Instead, I would write something different and much better, and finish the other book later. Oh, the lies we can tell ourselves!

Anyway, I managed to evade the siren calls of the new ideas and stay with The Book. (In an attempt to focus on the work, I’ve started now calling it The Book, using capital letters; any means are allowed to keep going!).

I’m now reading the last few research books and working on the lecture notes. I’m so fed up with reading books when my whole body screams to start writing. Hence, the lure and allure of the shiny new ideas. 

But I’m almost out of the tunnel, and I think I can see the light (unless it’s the train, as my old boss used to say). So I’ve allowed myself to start putting some meat on the preliminary outline. It almost feels like writing and keeps me happy, or, at least, calm, while I’m wrapping up the research.

So, not so much to report from the trenches, just soldiering on. I’m shooting for January 1st to start the actual writing. Art is warfare; Steven Pressfield was right.


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TMIS or The Too Many Ideas Syndrome

Remember when I was talking about my temptation to abandon my non-fiction book and start writing a different kind of book? Guess what? It happened again! No surprise there. It felt so good (it always does!), I almost started jotting down the first pages. Then reality set in, and I have, in fact, looked up that blog post just to remind myself that ideas are a dime a dozen

Most (non-writing) people think that writers need ideas for new books, but getting new ideas is seldom a problem. Quite the opposite, in fact. Enter TMIS, i.e., Too Many Ideas Syndrome. You have more ideas that you could possibly be working on. So beware: TMIS sounds like a luxury problem, but it can be paralyzing or make you jump from project to project, never finishing anything.

I have a pretty long list of things I’d like to write about, and – as you can see here – every now and then, I even convince myself that it may be worth abandoning whatever I was working on to pursue that shiny new thing.

However, this time I was ready and stayed the course. I followed my own advice (something I should do more often, I always think) and archived that shiny thing in the slush file. With a sigh and some heartache but I did it. If nothing else, I hope it’ll make me finish this book as soon as possible; then, I can start working on the new one. Win-win!


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