Why bother?

I have a closed-in backyard.  I have high ambitions for my garden.  I try to improve it just a little each year, but it's slow going.  But eventually, I may have both the design and the plants in  place, all flourishing, all looking good.

And no one will ever know except me and my family and a few friends.

Because it's a closed-in backyard.  And yet, I don't doubt I want to do it.  I don't doubt that it has value.  Every spring I get excited about improving the garden, and it fades during the spring and summer, becomes hard work, so that by fall I'm always asking why I bother? 

Writing books is a lot like this to me.  It's possible no one will ever see what I do.  But I still get excited at the beginning of every project, which slowly wears off as the problems mount, until I ask myself why I bother?

Writing and gardening are long-term projects.  They can seem overwhelming and insurmountable sometimes.  Sometimes they are a hard slog.  But they have their little joys interspersed.

I also see the store as a parallel.  The big difference -- which I noted right away after buying the store 29  years ago -- is that whatever creative decisions I make have an immediate impact.

Then again, the overall impact -- the making of a living wage -- was a long-term project that seemed overwhelming and insurmountable and often I asked myself why I bother?


All these doubts have come to the fore with Sometimes a Dragon.  I ask myself whether I should try to improve the book or could improve the book.  It seems overwhelming and insurmountable.  Why bother?

Like the store -- like the garden -- I just have to do the work, and hope the rest follows.  Just keep writing and trying to improve and look for opportunities.  For instance, a tweet mentioned that a horror publisher was taking open submissions, so I sent them Death of an Immortal.  Why not?
I don't expect them to take it, but it doesn't hurt to try.

I just have to keep working on the garden every year -- I'm probably a decade away from having something that might be worth bragging about. 

I just have to keep working on my books -- and I may be a decade away from having something worth bragging about.