I know you know this struggle!! I also remember when teaching, it was especially hard to muster up my own creative spark when I was tending so much to others. You do both so well!
Lanier! We are having parallel experiences, even down to the dogs at the feet going bonkers over squirrels. And if it makes you feel better, the reporting series I recently published took me 16 months to complete. And I agonized every single day over the time it took, because it felt like I wasn't writing enough, wasn't doing enough work. When it reality, in hindsight, I now see I really did need all that time to synthesize all of it (and revise, revise revise). I groaned on about this to my editor until he finally said, "Look. It takes the time it takes."
Your reporting is phenomenal, and you are dealing with tough subjects in an impossible world. I'm going to remember what your editor said when I start agonizing. Sometimes the story is still unfolding when we're working on a project, and we may not even realize it. It's also a balance of holding ourselves accountable but giving ourselves some grace at the right moments.
Yes yes yes! I identify 100%!
Boy can I relate! Right down to jumping into cold water :) Glad you tuned out the distractions to share this one!
It's a daily tussle with some days better than others!
Every word! xo
I know you know this struggle!! I also remember when teaching, it was especially hard to muster up my own creative spark when I was tending so much to others. You do both so well!
Yes to all of this!
Lanier! We are having parallel experiences, even down to the dogs at the feet going bonkers over squirrels. And if it makes you feel better, the reporting series I recently published took me 16 months to complete. And I agonized every single day over the time it took, because it felt like I wasn't writing enough, wasn't doing enough work. When it reality, in hindsight, I now see I really did need all that time to synthesize all of it (and revise, revise revise). I groaned on about this to my editor until he finally said, "Look. It takes the time it takes."
Your reporting is phenomenal, and you are dealing with tough subjects in an impossible world. I'm going to remember what your editor said when I start agonizing. Sometimes the story is still unfolding when we're working on a project, and we may not even realize it. It's also a balance of holding ourselves accountable but giving ourselves some grace at the right moments.
Sheesh, you nailed it! I sat down to write...but just *had* to read your essay first.
OMG, this is me!