So yeah! I spent most of Friday, one of the most important days of my writing career, stuffed up, coughing, and feeling like crap. Yay winter illness!
Well, I wasn’t completely flat out, thankfully. I managed to get some work done on the Lidwells outline and spamtweet the news of my book release a few times. I did get some more done this weekend as well, and I did head to the symphony today with A. despite feeling a bit loopy. I’m not as stuffed up as I usually get with this sort of illness; it’s mostly been a scratchy throat and a congested head. Wouldn’t surprise me if the sinus floodgates opened up in the next few days, though. Bleh.
Still…the important thing is that I did some writing work. One step closer to my goal of getting another novel out in a decent amount of time.
You should take care of yourself first, you say. Don’t overdo it. Take a day off now and again.
My mom used to say that all the time, back when I was writing down in the Belfry in the dead of winter, congested and irritable but committed to the cause. Yeah, some days it was cold enough down there that I worked on the family computer upstairs, but I was stubborn…I wanted to get these books done!
There were some days when I probably should have heeded my mom’s advice and taken the day off to read my comic books or goof off on the PC for a few hours. On the not-so-bad days I’d get maybe a few hundred words done rather than the thousand I normally aimed for. On the yeah-I-shouldn’t-be-doing-this days I’d hit more like a hundred and call it done after an hour. There’s also the fact that I was writing after a full day of physical labor at the Day Job (which could be ten hours, six days a week, during Q4).
Nowadays, I don’t get sick all that often, since the climate out here in San Francisco is a bit warmer and not as pollinated. I’m not running myself ragged with a physical job anymore, nor am I supporting a smoking habit. It’s rare that I’ll feel ill like this…maybe once or twice every two or three years at most. And I rarely overexert myself to the point where I need to sacrifice an evening of writing.
Point being…if I can soldier on and continue to write, even if it’s light work, I’ll do it if I can. But if I’m going to feel like crap tomorrow, then yeah…I’ll know well enough to let it go and nap it off instead.
*kaff kaff*
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