I think that I'm in a dangerous place in my life right now. I'm happy. I'm comfortable.

I'm not sure that's a bad thing, per se, but it is a dangerous thing.

For instance, its a a lot easier to sit down in the evening, fire up a few rounds of Heroes of the Storm when I don't feel like I have to get something done. I mean, what's the harm of only writing a couple nights a week when there's no consequence to not writing. Why work on WordKeeperAlpha when it works pretty well, my users are reasonably happy and the next major step is a LOT of work?

I mean, the reward for finishing my book is going to be querying agents, waiting on either silence or rejections. I'm not expecting Blood Log to be something agents or traditional publishing is interested in. That's not why I'm writing it. I'm writing it because its fun, and I'm going to have a book to my name, even if it's through a smaller publisher or self-published. Mostly though, its a fun story that I enjoy writing.

So why don't I write more? Well, because I also like playing video games and that's not work. It's really easy to think about writing, plan out where the story is going and then put it off for another day than it is to sit down and tap out a thousand words. After all, I've got lots of time. I can finish my book whenever I want.

And in the back of my mind is a little voice that reminds me I could keep repeating “I can finish my book whenever I want” until I'm eighty years old and I'm out of time. Or I could get hit by a bus tomorrow. Morbid? Yes. True? Also yes.

And, I wish that I could finish out this blog entry with “…and then, with that realization I put on a shock collar that zapped me whenever I didn't write a thousand words a day. Within a year I had five books written, and the publishing houses were competing over who could give me the biggest car.” Sadly, that's not how life works, and this is just something I'm going to have to work on.

The hard truth is that I've written less this year than last year. Far less. I've played more games, watched more TV, but not gotten more done on any of my projects. It feels like I've got less time for my projects than I did in previous years, but that's not true. I think I've just gotten comfortable. Somewhere between taking a break on Impervious and committing to Blood Log as my first book I've lost some of that drive that pushed me.

Now, I just have to find out how to get that back. Maybe that means sitting down and writing every day. Maybe it means reading more writing blogs and books. It most certainly means fewer nights playing video games, even if I am playing with friends. I'm not sure what it's going to take yet… but it is going to require some changes on my part.

I'm going to spend some time thinking. Come up with some goals. I'll let you know how that goes.

Don't worry. I'm not quitting anything. No where near that. I've just become frustrated with my lack of forward momentum, and I've got the feeling that the only way I'm going to counter that is by developing some. And that's going to be uncomfortable… but then, I suppose that was the point of this blog.

So, I'm off to disrupt my status quo. I'll let you know how that goes. Cheers!