Seems like I do my best writing when I’m overwhelmed.

Seems like every waking hour I am bombarded with life, relationships, adult responsibilities, and worst of all, my job.

My (place horrible description here) job.

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More like a windowless prison for hours upon hours of excruciatingly boring, mind-numbing, repetetive tasks for 40+ hours a week– not including commute.

I digress…

The point of this post -I think- is in the midst of all this pressure, angst, and suffocating busy-ness, I not only find a way to complete, edit, and build manuscripts and short stories; they often turn out better than when I have the hours to dedicate to my work.

Not sure what it is…

Maybe I write better under pressure. Maybe it has time to do with my stint as a freelance journalist where hard deadlines and quick turnarounds were a common thing. Maybe I’m so used to gritting and grinding for what I want that I don’t know what to do with a little freedom, quiet and peace of mind.

Turning my 45 minute commutes into word-sprints…

Using my lunch hour and scattered minutes between work assignments to edit content… (This actually gets me in trouble quite often. Try to be discrete in the office environment. Especially an office with nosey coworkers in close proximity).

Using the few hours before bed to develop and create…

I’ve grown more comfortable in tight creative spaces, because that’s all that’s available to me. All I have to work with.

I was even forced to refine my writing style to meet deadlines in-spite of my usually busy schedule.

No {more} excuses for me. I’d rather change myself before I change a deadline.

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I read some of my stuff the other day. Compared the old stuff from a decade ago, to the new more recent stuff.

Wow… The pace of my writing -prose, dialogue, and all- has change. Tight, quick, and very to the point.

My older writing was very exposition-heavy with long and drawn out dialogue. Not saying the writing was bad… Just saying it was a lot more drawn out. The type of writing a person would need lots of free time to read and digest.

What changed?

I was younger. Few relationships. Fewer responsibilities. No 9 to 5…

I had more free time. And my writing reflected it.

Guess my writing style/voice is a reflection of my life and my time. In a hurry…

I’ll find out soon enough whether that’s a good thing.