I'm Viewing Writing As My New Temp Job

Just like with real temp work, I don't get any benefits from my writing job. No health coverage, no paid sick days, certainly no vacation. Luckily, I already have health insurance, and every day for me is a vacation.

Unlike real temp work, I receive no paycheck. Sadly.

I've been struggling with completing my writing assignments, partially due to the medication I'm on, which zaps every molecule of enthusiasm, but mainly because the drive to write just isn't there anymore. As you know, I have a couple of projects I need to complete, one being the cursed Christmas gift I received from my son of a memorygram book. In his defense, he "sort of" knows that I write, although he has no clue that I've published 12+ books. No one knows that. So, it was a fine gift, and in fact it did start out "fine". I eschewed the company's question order and instead picked out the questions I felt like answering first. I composed some interesting, comprehensive responses to those. And it was fun adding images to each story. 

Well, now I'm left with the dregs---the boring questions and/or the ones I'm firmly against answering. Memorygram allows the user to compose her own questions, but let me be clear: that's not as easy as it sounds. I know that my son wants a family history of sorts. He's into that, so I managed to detail as much of it as I could. I'm also aware that people like reading about themselves more than anything, and thus I composed a question about each of my sons and their first years of life. (Haven't answered those yet.) But what else? My life isn't all that interesting. I even Googled lists of family history questions, but most of them are repetitive. What do I want to share about myself? Not much. I'm a very private person, not a big blabber.

So I've decided to view this project as a job; one that I don't relish, but has to get done. I'll chip away at it until I have enough content for the book to be worth printing. It's gonna be torture, but most temp jobs are.

Next will be my third novel's reboot. (No, I haven't forgotten about it.) That's where the true push and pull will begin, because I absolutely don't want to do it. I've been talking about it for months, yet have never started. So why is it still a goal? I don't like leaving things undone. If I make a commitment, I'm going to follow through (if it kills me). I don't necessarily doubt that I can accomplish it, and I do like the notion of publishing it as a paperback, so I can buy a copy for my shelf. If I could just skip all the hard work and get to the end goal, voila! 

Therefore, this, too, will be temp work. Kind of like a factory job, an assembly line. 

Once I meet my daily quota, I can go home and crawl into bed. Ideally, there should be a reward, so I guess napping will have to be it. I no longer drink and I can't eat, even if I want to. 

We all play mind tricks. I've decided this one might just work.  

When these two assignments are done, I will officially retire from writing. There's a goal in itself.