I posted some time ago about running out of steam — starting on a project, then working on it less and less until I do nothing at all. Well, lately I’ve found myself running out of steam in a different way. While I’m at work, I’m more than happy to write instead of doing what I’m supposed to be doing. But when I’m at home, off the clock — or even working from home — I can only write so much before I run out of steam and stop.

The morning I wrote this post, I had rewritten chapter 8 of my BDSM romance novel. I also fed a bunch of short-stories under a different pen name into Gemini to try and come up with some better titles. And I wrote some blog posts. But by 11:00, I’d run out of steam almost completely. I had no desire to keep writing, no desire to do any editing, and no desire to do any outline drafting. I was just happy to be sitting in front of my computer, at my desk, and not be at the office.

At this point, I have a lot of projects going on under multiple pen names — the BDSM romance, the GWWA story (which now has a tentative title and needs some serious editing), several novelettes and novellas, a completed novel that I need to edit, and a new one that I’m drafting now, about a serial killer. There’s plenty of work to be done, writing-wise. I just don’t have the steam to do it.

Nor do I have the steam to apply for jobs. I have a recruiter who’s put me in front of a company, and I emailed him to get an update (haven’t heard back yet), but I don’t know that I have the steam to go through the application process for all the various jobs I qualify for, just to get rejected over and over again. That not only uses up my steam; it also borrows against future steam, and I’ll have less to use the next time I’m at home and want to write.

I wish I had the self-discipline to just sit down and write, like so many authors do. Maybe if this was my full-time job things would be different, but I have another full-time job, plus a life to live, plus dogs to pet and TV shows to watch and books to read. There’s only so much time in a day, and only so much steam that’s part of that time. I’m not sure what I can do to change that. Maybe nothing. Maybe I’m just destined to keep running out of steam.