Dateline 2-26-2016
/I think I've started a few post like this lately but this has been a weird couple weeks. Up until the start of this weirdness I was really starting to feel positive about life again. I spent every spare moment of the new year learning a new trade and feeling great about it.
Granted there's been some disappointment when I don't pickup on certain skills right away, some anxiety when I think about how early I am in the process this late in life, and frustration when I can't move forward due to my financial limitations, but all in all this has been a great year as far as feeling I have a future.
About two weeks ago I started to feel burnt out, which of course led me to start feeling that I was putting in all this new effort for nothing. These doubts have and probably always will haunt me no matter what I end up making of myself. This is probably due to the unacknowledged efforts I've put into everything else I've ever done, but again, I'm feeling positive toward my progress at this point.
This may be I'm extra freaked out about my latest ghostwriting gig. I'm not freaked out in that I don't think I can get it done. I'm usually good at meeting deadlines, and I have an idea for the story that will work. The problem is that I just don't have the same love of screenwriting that I used to and that makes me sad.
I've been on the verge of giving up screenwriting in general for about two years now, ever since I wrote my last original feature length script and my first novel, but again, I've been chasing this for around twenty years so it's hard to even think of not having it as a part of my personality. To top it off I've gotten several ghostwriting jobs over the past two years which only serves to fuel the hope, which I'm not sure is a good thing at this point.
On Monday I received an offer to write a script. This is a person I've worked with in the past and they were paying well so I said yes, hoping this would be the break I need from all the web development stuff I've been working on. It's been two months since I've written an assignment so I figured why not.
I got sick the day after accepting the offer and have fallen into a pattern of procrastination and self doubt that I was beginning to think was gone. I think this may be a sign that I just need to stop.
I don't think I'm every going to fully give up but I think after this gig I'm done writing any fiction until I can figure out how to make a comfortable living without it. I've said this in the past but now I feel like I have to stick to this edict because I can't keep beating myself up over these stories that no one even sees.
Of course I'll keep writing here as I at least get a couple people to look at this page from time to time.
Oh well, I really need to get writing.
Talk to you tomorrow.