A Writer’s Guilt

There are times that I want and need to write, but I just don’t know what it is that I want to put down on paper. At the moment, I have numerous writing projects that if I even take five seconds to think about it, I get overwhelmed. As it stands I have at least three book reviews to write (not too mention about 20 books to read); queries to write and send, a post for this blog, essays, and Julius, Julius, and Julius.

That’s the writing part; the non-writing assignment include work, which is mostly email correspondence and follow-up for clients (and that’s really more writing); reading those 20 books to review; learning everything I can about search engine optimization and internet marketing for writers, and finishing my ESL coursework.

It’s a lot of work and if I were to assign myself hourly tasks, I think I can safely say that eating, exercising, any socializing (online or in real time) would be out of the question.

But my main issue is the guilt factor. If I don’t write anything that day (and that means articles, blog posts, essays, queries, and Julius) because I have to focus on work and the other projects, I feel guilty. Apparently I’m not the only writer who feels this way. How do I overcome this? I ran a search via Google and came across Writing on the Run, today’s post is ‘Have a Guilt Free Day‘ which offers the following advice:

Give yourself one day a week or more, if necessary, when you don’t even think about writing. Take a guilt-free vacation from projects even when they are burning to be composed. Let them simmer. Move them to the back burner. Do something entirely different, preferably active. Even when you have what you think is the greatest idea in the world, wait those few hours until dawn of the next day to write it down.

Hmm, I’m a little skeptical, but I’ll give it a go and see if it works. . . .