The Pursuit of Old Writing Projects

This morning — as often is the case — I sat down with the good intentions of writing a "decent" post here.

Instead, the "Oh, shiny!" syndrome struck me, and I ended up spending a bunch of time sorting through the myriad writing folders I have created across several computers.

Summer memories...

Writing Sites and Sustainability

The first thing that struck me is the stunning number of writing sites that have ended up going to the Great Web Site Graveyard in the Sky. I am not exactly sure what we can learn from that, but is seems to me that perhaps "creating web content" isn't as good a gig as I'm inclined to think.

Or maybe I'm just hopeful.

Then I started looking at the sheer number of articles I have "started, but not finished."

I suppose I should be grateful that I took the time to save them, rather than just delete them to the recycle bin.

Sadly, they are also a reflection of the fact that I almost never have any blocks of contiguous time to just sit down and write something. It invariably ends up being "5 minutes here, 13 minutes somewhere else and 200 words tomorrow."

Much as I'd like to think otherwise, the lack of continuity is actually detrimental to my creativity.

Bummer, dude....

Water and sunlight

When You Have "The Slows"

Certain patterns seem to always run true in my life.

Whenever my creativity levels seem to tank, I tend to reach for old projects, started in the past... but never finished. Usually, I stopped writing back then because I felt the piece was lacking something, or (more likely!) it felt like I would be saying something that had already been said by someone else, quite well.

Sometimes, it's surprisingly easy to take an idea started six months previously and build it out into something useful. Whenever I do that, I tend to not feel quite so bad about been somewhat of an information hoarder.

OK, let's be honest here: I never delete an old partial article, just in case I might find some use for it, later on. Thankfully, I don't write in the "newsy" end of the writing business!

Heart of the flower...

Maybe It's Just the Looming New Year...

So, at the moment I feel a little short on creativity... although — ironically — my writing this post about lacking creativity is actually a "from scratch" effort. Which just goes to show that I am wildly inconsistent.

With the New Year around the corner, I've also been poking at the edges of "Goal Setting" for 2019.

Maybe goal setting (and so-called "resolutions") make sense if you live a pretty stable and predictable life. Which I do not, so I mostly avoid goal setting... since everything I plan around today could be completely irrelevant by a month from now.

Even so, I find a measure of comfort in creating a small "road map" for the year ahead. But that will be for a future post...

Thanks for reading!

How About YOU? Do you save old "partially written" articles and posts? Or are you more of a one-at-a-time person? How about goal setting? Do you have 2019 goals for Steemit, for writing, for LIFE? Do you do "New Year's Resolutions?" Leave a comment-- share your experiences-- be part of the conversation!

(As always, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for Steemit)
Created at 181229 17:19 PDT