Is there a fine line between unmotivated and lazy, or does one just lead to the other? Honestly, I don't know. I do know that when I have something to do or undertake a project, I go at it full pelt. Having something to do motivates me. Finding something to do, however, now that I'm retired and don't have to work, is difficult. At first, I'd try to find useful things to do to fill my day and, not finding enough, had guilt trips. What is the point of living if you're not contributing in some way?
This line of thinking became rather tiresome and just led to anxiety as well as to the mindset of digging my heels in and not wanting to do anything, because I was pressuring myself too much. I've pressured myself all my life and I'm fed up with it. When am I allowed to do absolutely nothing without guilt? I know that if I did manage to, I would go stir crazy with boredom anyway.
I will not consider taking up cleaning my house to Good Housekeeping standards to justify my existence. That is mind numbing stuff. I do the basics, I'm tidy and hygienic but that is all. Dust and I, for instance, barely acknowledge one another. One day when my six-year-old grand-daughter was visiting, she flung herself on our loungeroom ottoman. To my absolute amazement, a cloud of dust rose up around her. Her mother was witness to this fantastic sight and so I resolved to vacuum it without further ado. Every now and then, I also put my glasses on when I am indoors and see the layers of dust on my furniture and force myself to wipe every surface. It always surprises me when the dust comes back. It's funny stuff. You just don't really see it in the air, but it's there.
It occurs to me that it is difficult to do absolutely nothing when you are at home as it is seen as lazy as opposed to being relaxed. In order to get away with it, one must really be on vacation or on a trip. This way, sitting around reading a book all day or watching television is condoned. After all, you're on holiday. I don't really have the funds for either lately so I must do these things at home, where I will be judged. Vacations and trips can also prove taxing if you are travelling and must move from one place to the other and take organized tours. These require effort. It's an effort that I'm absolutely prepared to take if it's an excursion to the Greek Isles or the Pyramids in Egypt, but not if it's bus trips to places of total disinterest domestically during which people might decide to have singalongs between towns.
I have written about boredom in other blogs and also about hobbies. In truth, the only thing that really interests me is writing and, sometimes reading, if I can find a good book. The latter is also difficult. I have taken to borrowing books from the library again in the last six months. I have read many good books in my time but finding one lately is becoming a quest. I have read the newly released novels of two well-known crime writers and been appalled. It is as if they are now being ghost written. I know this can happen, as I've spoken to a woman who worked in publishing. I was expressing to her my surprise and disbelief that a particular author managed to bring out a new novel every year in time for Christmas. I was also amazed that he hadn't died of old age. She told me that publishers often employed ghost writers to fill in the novels of best-selling authors after the authors themselves wrote the whole plot line. The ghost writers copy the author's style and fill out the manuscript.
No wonder then, that it's hard for new authors to get a break in the industry, especially as publishers must compete with the internet and online publishing. Unfortunately, although that resource allows new authors to publish, we miss out on the marketing and advertising that publishers take on for an author. It is expensive and that is why we want to be accepted by them in the first place.
When I go into my local library, the newly released novels will have little stamps on them like, "Staff's top picks", meaning the library staff. Most of them also boast, "New York Time's Bestseller". When I come to that last one now, I go straight past the book. As sure as it has that label, I will hate it. I can't believe the dross I have picked up in these last six months. I have read in this time a couple of new, young female authors, who are both listed in their blurbs as having done creative writing courses at elite universities. I could tell within the first chapters they had undertaken writing courses as their writing was formulaic.
This isn't sour grapes. Good luck to them for being published, but I don't want to read what they write. It was also immature and fit for Cosmopolitan Magazine fiction. I have, happily, found one author whom I really like. Kate Atkinson is an English author who can go off on so many tangents, with so many well drawn characters, that I completely lose myself. I've read five of hers in a row now and need a little break. I'm also running out of her novels. A novelist needs to have a unique voice, not one gained from doing a writing course. There is no template for a novel. The rule basically is that it needs to have a beginning, a middle and an end with a resolution. I'm sure some novelists have played with these rules, but then, it depends how artfully they do it.
I've been told by a literary agent, who I phoned for advice, that my latest novel is, 'too long'. My thoughts are, 'Well, how long is a piece of string? As long as it needs to be." She said, "No, it's the publishing costs". Apparently, that wasn't a consideration with Tolstoy's, "War and Peace", or Margaret Mitchell's, "Gone with the Wind". Going over one hundred thousand words is not a good idea these days. Also, she told me that one needs a social media presence and followers. At this point, I decided to stick with Amazon Publishing. I'd already reduced the manuscript by thirty thousand words, and I wasn't reducing it anymore.
There is a book I recommend reading regarding Artificial Intelligence and writing and it is, "The Well of Lost Plots" by Jasper Fforde published in 2003. It is fantasy fiction but very relevant today where AI is writing essays and business letters and the like for people. In "The Well of Lost Plots", authors are at risk of losing their jobs because a computer program will take over writing novels and the people of BookWorld, a world inhabited by characters from fiction, must fight to save their own lives. That's a very loose explanation of the plot, however, the novel is very clever and, I thought at the time of reading, very far-sighted.
It is, therefore, also hard to be motivated when I see writing that I personally find uninspiring being published because it will sell easily. There is also a lot of dross on the Amazon Book site but, because of its sheer size, there are also many good books. I'm sure many people read the books on Amazon with covers showing men with six pack abdomens and adoring women draped around them, but there are all sorts of novels, including the classics. Don't always go by the star ratings. I think people get paid to pump up ratings and some very odd novels have five stars. You just need the patience to peruse the millions of books on the site and sort the wheat from the chaff.
I now return to my quest to motivate myself into useful occupation or enjoy the sheer abundance, and lack of it, of choice in retirement.
END
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