Taking a break

One of the things I vowed to do when I retired from the newspaper business was write books.

Or at least a book.

Right now, I’m about halfway through a work of fiction, three chapters into a non-fiction sports book, and have a decent start on a fiction novel geared toward young adults.

Problem is, I’m so accustomed to short form pieces that I’ve concentrated more on this website than I have the books. And, in all honesty, I’ve used adamsonmedia.com as an excuse to put them on the backburner.

Truth is, for the first time in my writing career, I’m out of my comfort zone.

Put me in a stadium or gym, and I was always confident I could recreate what happened there in a way that informed readers in an entertaining way.

When I wrote columns, I was sure that even if you disagreed with the opinion, you’d have no quarrel with the craft.

But I’ve never been much of a swimmer, and right now I’m in the deep end of the pool – fully clothed and lacking a water noodle.

While the non-fiction sports book feels more natural, I still have a whole lot of work to do. And I’m straight-up struggling with the other two.

It’s frustrating.

I know where I want them to go but I can’t figure out how to get there; I want to take shortcuts but I know that only winds up in dead ends.

So ….

I’m taking a break from this website in order to spend all my writing time on my long form projects.

If I had more talent I could juggle all of it, but I don’t and, therefore, I can’t.

Newspapers have deadlines, and deadlines always gave me a mark to hit.

Without them, I’ve discovered that I have all the time in the world to write and all of the time in the world to waste – and I’ve opted for the latter.

I mean, those cat videos on YouTube aren’t gonna watch themselves.

That being the case, I’m going to impose my own deadlines and set an actual work schedule. Once I do that, hopefully the words will come more easily and find their way onto pages that will eventually (hopefully) become books.

If and when that happens – when I see some real progress – I’ll return to this site.

It could be a week, a couple of weeks or a couple of months … I really don’t know.

But one way or another, I’m going to find out something important about myself.

Namely, am I a writer capable of writing books?

I’m about to find out.