As I near the halfway point of the second semester of my freshman year, I’ve had to learn another hard lesson about my own ability to do things. I tend to enjoy taking on a variety of projects, challenging and pushing myself to always do more and to do better at whatever I do–whether this is academic, extracurricular, or job -related. I like to say yes to things when asked, both because of what I just said, but also because, simply, I don’t like to say no. It comes from being a “people-pleaser”–I don’t want to disappoint someone by turning down their request or offer. I often feel obligated to say yes, even if they aren’t putting any pressure on me. It also comes because I don’t always have a good grasp of my limits. I will push myself until I drop because I don’t know when I’ve reached a point of over-working. This past month, I’ve had to confront this in two specific areas of my life–employment and writing.
For several months, I’ve been searching for internships or jobs for this summer and the upcoming school year, with no success. Then, in one week, I was offered three different positions working for my college. All three were positions I wanted to do, and I felt called to all of them. I recognized that I could do good work and help people through all three positions–which were a tour guide, receptionist, and admissions assistant in my college’s Admissions Office. All three positions would help me develop a variety of necessary professional and interpersonal skills for my future career, and I could see very tangible ways in which I would be helping and serving others by working in any of the jobs.
I wanted to accept all three positions. As I thought it through, however, and talked it over with my parents and some friends, I realized that accepting all three wouldn’t be the wisest choice for me. I had to consider the fact that I am also a full-time student, and had recently been accepted onto Orientation Board, a team of upperclassmen who welcome freshmen to school at the beginning of the year. This would take up a lot of my time during the first half of my fall semester next year.
Ultimately, I decided that I couldn’t accept all three jobs I had been offered. I ended up turning down the position as a receptionist, which was very hard for me because I didn’t want to say no. They had offered it to me and I felt almost obligated to say yes. But I recognized eventually that this was an unhealthy mindset and I needed to be more judicious and focused in deciding how to spend my time.
This has been largely a lesson in time-management. My time is precious and I have to be responsible in choosing how to spend it. I’ve also had to learn this recently in another area of my life–writing.
For the past five years or so, I have been working on developing and writing a series of books, and about two weeks ago, I decided that I had to put this series aside. Essentially “kill” the series. This was one of the hardest decisions I have ever had to make when it comes to my writing career, because I have invested a massive chunk of my life and talent into this series. I had every book (there were to be 7) planned out in detail. Each character had a long, rich, compelling backstory, and I had built a vast mythology and history for the world. I had started a few drafts of the first book, but for some reason I could never get it to work.
I kept thinking that if I just tweaked this, or changed that, I would be able to make the series work. I desperately wanted to write it. The series, which was essentially a prose take on the superhero genre, contained compelling themes related to faith, courage, racism, medical ethics, war, terrorism, politics, and more. It was going to be epic in scope.
But it didn’t work.
I don’t know why it didn’t work. Perhaps it’s because I had too many versions of it in my head. Perhaps I’m just not a mature enough writer to write it right now. Maybe I was trying to write it in the wrong medium–maybe a graphic novel series or a screenplay would fit it better. Whatever the reason, I decided that I had to say no to this project. Maybe, someday in the future, I will revisit it, but right now I have put it aside indefinitely. I am no longer working on it, and I don’t plan on working on it at all. This was not an easy decision to arrive at, because of how deeply invested I was. It still is not an easy decision, but I think it was the right decision.
Since I’ve said no to that project, I’ve finished a draft of my Untitled College Novel, and have been able to begin editing it. It was when I finished the rough draft of the College Novel that I realized I had made the right choice. I started writing the first superhero book a couple years ago and in the time it took me to get half a draft of that finished, I had written three other books and published two of them. I finally realized that my pace on the superhero series wasn’t normal for me, and I needed to put it aside and let myself focus on other projects that didn’t constantly discourage me.
I am excited about my new projects, and I am optimistic that I may finally release another book in 2018, after not releasing anything in 2017, contrary to my original plan. While I do think I’ve found a niche in YA contemporary fiction that I enjoy writing in, I hope to make a return to science fiction and fantasy sometime in the near future. I have two ideas, one for a YA pirates fantasy series, and one for a YA dystopian/science-fiction thriller series, that I might allow myself to explore. I’ll hopefully be posting updates on the College Novel soon, once I have a more concrete plan for what to do next!