story hopping problem

Okay... lets ignore my fail at updating this blogspace. In between working away and tripping down south to Cambridge and London, it got a bit mad. And you tend to forget things like the fact you have a blog when work takes over...

Anyway, I want to talk about one of my main goals: publishing a book. Having my words in print. I'm sure we've all thought about it.

However, its a very big dream (but hey, either dream big or not at all I say) and so is going to be very time consuming to actually achieve. But before that can happen I need to write the book. Which is a task in itself.

The main problem I have with working on this goal of finishing a story, is that I am very distractable. I tend to juggle several projects at once. I will start one project and then get an idea for another story and drop the first project... and so on. Its been a long standing problem. I know I'm not the only one, because my friend is the same with so many projects at once... I'm surprised we both get any work done at all... its like procrastination, but with different creative projects.

But my other writing buddy, and my brother, do not like me being a story-whore, and are forever prompting me to settle down and just write one book at a time. I get the usual “why don't you just only write one book?” which really means: Why haven't you finished a book yet?

The answer is the story hopping. I did it for all of 2011 and most of this year. But I'm actually going to get my butt into gear now. These guys all mean well and want me to succeed (at least I hope so!) - and actually realise my dream of writing and publishing a book. I need to stop standing in my own way now, sit down, and write ONE story until its end. If I can do that, I'll be on my way. Even if the draft is hideous.

Because I need to stop the story hopping.