Friday, February 19, 2010

Trying to run with the distractions

I've come to expect a certain . . . pattern when it comes to my creative endeavors. Over the years, I've never quite learned how best to avoid this pattern; I've just learned to expect it to rear its ugly distracting head when I feel like I've got a groove going on one or two projects already.

I get distracted with other potential projects.

I've been lucky with Mail Order Zombie. I've been able to keep producing the podcast on a weekly basis for over two years, and even if I have been hit with other project ideas, there's still always a new MOZ every week. There are other podcast ideas that have come and gone since I first dipped my toes in the podosphere, and I even put out one singular episode of something I called Mixtape of the Macabre (which will sadly end up being one of those podcasts that never makes it past the first episode, methinks); I spun MOZ Presents: The Munchies off from Mail Order Zombie, and this has let me branch out a little bit, but new Munchies episodes have been few and far between.

Normally what happens is this: I make some headway on some sort of creative project (more often than not, it's a piece of writing), and then something else will pop up. Eventually, I end up with three, four, five different projects going at once, and I burn out before anything's actually completed. I used to tell myself that it was a good thing that I was "so creative" (yes, I realize how that sounds!), but after a while, I end up finding more frustration that completion. I suppose it's a matter of discipline.

And it worries me that it's happening again.

I've been listening to a lot of audio drama podcasts lately, and damn if I haven't been thinking about what it might be like to produce one of my own. How in the hell is THAT supposed to fit into my 2010 goals? How do I make the time to do something like this where there are still nights when I stay up WAY past my bedtime producing Mail Order Zombie? (Thankfully not as many, but still . . . )

I've got a few ideas, and I think within the next few weeks, I'll be revisiting my 2010 goals and maybe rewriting them. Hey, editing is part of the writing process, right?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You must so go for it!

-Demise

Damocles66 said...

Best of luck keeping your innards and or skull contents from exploding as you branch off into yet another endeavor.

---Randy