Nothing to report on the writing front yet this week. I’m home, and I’ve been playing catch up. That hasn’t left any time for writing yet.
I actually stared at the screen for the last five minutes trying to think of something else to say that isn’t another variation on the chorus of “I’m tired” or “I’m stressed,” because I am both of those things, but they are fairly constant, so it’s important that I find a way to work around it. Anything less is admitting defeat.
So this isn’t about whining and saying how hard it is or rehashing how I feel like I may have failed lately. Over. Done. Can’t be changed.
In the month of July I wrote 6865 words. That’s barely more than I wrote the month Daisy had her stroke, and it was less days than that month (12 vs 15). Some of those missed days were due to travel. Some stress. Some illness. Some rabid plot bunnies. REALLY rabid plot bunnies. I cut over 8k from DOTH. Deadweight. Good riddance. I finished reading one of my research books for this project. So it wasn’t a wholly unproductive month, just not what I wanted to accomplish. It’s still more words than I would have had if I hadn’t sat down to write in the first place. Oh, and Red passed the 3,000 copies sold mark 2 weeks before its first birthday, so that was cool. And I finally found a new contemporary romance author I really like (Jill Shalvis) and have been plowing through her books like a bowl of my mother in law’s guacamole.
Since stress has been such an issue lately, I’ve been working on means to reduce, or at least compartmentalize, the load. My standby yoga routine with my New U Yoga game for Wii didn’t do the trick, but I’ve gone through my copy of Calm Sexy Slim Yoga and entered the Anxiety and AM Metabolism booster routines into my workout timer app on my phone. They’re fairly short routines. 7-10 minutes. The kind of thing I can throw in every day without it sucking up too much of my time. It’s not about the exercise. It’s about the mental clarity.
Since I’m not suddenly going to have the opportunity for 10 hours of sleep a night, I’m going to at least try to get to bed a bit sooner. This weekend I intend to SLEEP and be a hermit, so next week I should at least feel less dead on my feet. Other than that, I’m just trying to make it to 5 o’clock on Friday.
3 thoughts on “Wednesday Check-In”
Good luck with that stress reduction, Kait. That’s some of the most important work we can do.
I was just thinking I hadn’t seen you around as much lately. Now I know why. I’m sorry the stress is bearing down on you. It sounds like you have all the right ideas though about trying to minimize it and compartmentalize. Good job on what you did get done, and the fact that even though you didn’t write as much as you wanted, you still chopped and researched. Congrats on Red’s milestone – that’s awesome!! Hope you have a good rest of the week and get plenty of sleep 😀
Hi Kait, I’m sorry to hear you’re feeling so rotten. Getting on top of the stress load is most probably a greater goal than your word count at the moment. Be patient and give it time. I hope everything evens out for you soon and that your energy levels revitalise.
Cheers, Cate (ROW80) (Only half back on deck herself. I know where you’re coming from!)