Exhausted Yet Determined

I do still love the holiday season, despite the weather and the crowds and the heightened insanity.  The only thing I don’t love is not being able to provide enough energy for my writing.  I wish I could be as productive at this time of year as I am, say, during the slow spring and summer seasons.  I can still do it, but each year I wonder if I shouldn’t be reviewing my schedule and figuring out a new way to get those words out.

There’s also the unexpected distractions that usually make me irritable for the rest of the day; for instance, I’ll be reporting for jury duty today and thus providing zero productivity until I get home.  [Well, that’s not entirely true.  I usually bring something writing related to jury duty for reading material.  Otherwise I’d be goofing off on my phone while I wait to be called.]  It’s not that I can’t handle distractions or multitasking, it’s the “drop everything and do this instead” mindset that bothers me.  I can’t stand having to completely stop a process to complete a different and unrelated process and then finally go back to the original process if I have time for it, while trying to figure out where the hell I left off.  I say all this because that’s been my Day Job situation for the last couple of months and let me tell you, IT GETS TIRING VERY QUICKLY.

Anyway.  As a writer, I still run on dogged determination and personal priority.  I need to give myself at least two hours for writing projects — this can mean anything from the daily words to whatever major project I’m working on, and it can be split into all kinds of available time throughout the day.  I can usually squeeze in more than that, but my hard fast rule is Two Hours.  

It can be tough to work through it all at this time of year, so one does tend to need a bit of determination and a whole lot of stubborn will.  Some days it’ll be fun, but other days it will be a slog.  Some days I’ll push through and get more done than I’d planned, and other days I just want to log off and go read a book instead.

All that said, I also need to remember not to overdo it.  If I truly am exhausted and don’t have the focus (or the mental acuity or the spoons or the energy, etc.), it’s okay to skip a day.  It annoys me when I have to, but I have to give myself that time off to recharge.

I mean, back in my Belfry days, I’d been known to zonk out in my chair after staying up far too late working on stuff.  I don’t think I need to do that anymore.  Just get the rest when needed, and start fresh the next day.  Everything will still be there when I log back on.