It would be so easy to quit.
And, frankly, given what’s happened this month, it’s almost felt like the universe has been trying to tell me to quit, too.
After the Romance novel stretched into the beginning of the month, I was already facing a deficit in time. (I might as well come clean about part of the reason for that, which I alluded to in an earlier post, but didn’t feel right sharing so close to the event: a friend died suddenly, and that shook me up, naturally.) Then, shortly after I wrapped that story up, I dislocated my thumb, which severely limited my ability to type. Even when I got the wrapping off and went to a splint, I still faced difficulties (which, thankfully by now, have mostly dissipated, especially if I type with my hand free, since the motion of typing doesn’t extend my thumb back, and thus isn’t a literal pain).
I’ll be honest: even though I was writing at least a little each day, I also faced a wave of depression over things, and I opted for things that helped me to feel better as opposed to putting in the time earlier in the month to write. The sad thing is, after facing down such big word pushes in January and February, I wanted to get back on track, and not have a need to make up so much ground at the end, especially since writing a Mystery doesn’t work that way, at least if I want it to be at least marginally good.
But what continued to happen? More stuff to get in my way. (I’ll highlight the stuff I allowed to get in my own way in the next paragraph.) Getting woken up way earlier than my alarm, so I was tired, and wanted to get to bed at a decent time or nap, cutting into my writing time. Going to a softball tournament in another state, taking up a lot of writing time. Having a small fire in our house, so dealing with that impacting my ability and time to write.
Then there’s my own problem. If it isn’t obvious by now, I’m horrible with time management. I’m highly distractable, and it doesn’t help that I subconsciously want to look for other things to do than write. (I know. Pretty much all writers deal with this. I’m not trying to act like I’m special in this regard.) While I may have given up my regular Twitter for Lent, I found ways to waste time on Facebook or YouTube (particularly when suggested videos proclaiming “Zack Morris Is Trash” caught my eye, considering how obsessed I was with Saved by the Bell when it originally aired, particularly in all the reruns in syndication). I tried to kid myself that this was stuff that was helping me to get happier and in a better mindset to write, but it was to avoid it, plain and simple.
And that’s something that I’ve been struggling with this time around for 12 Months, 12 Genres, something I didn’t have to concern myself with as much 10 years ago: self-care/mental health. While I might have had 2 seasonal jobs during most of 2013, and did some traveling/camping that complicated things, I didn’t have kids until the end of September, and even then, they were so young, and went to bed early enough, that I was able to make do with the free time I had. While my wife was okay with me writing a lot at times (including the last days of several months to finish on time), that can’t happen as easily this time around. I have obligations toward my family. I can’t just go off and write alone if I “need” to in order to finish a novel.
But I also can’t write as quickly as I used to be able to. I have a FB memory from 9 years ago today (because I was highlighting it before Camp Nano started in 2014) detailing some high numbers on the last days of several months in 2013 to finish on time. As the end of February most recently attests, I don’t have the mental bandwidth, nor the wrist strength, to do that anymore. And yet I still keep trying to do it for some reason. And it’s breaking me, almost to the point where my stubbornness told me I needed to do it again this month so that I could move on to the next novel.
But I’m not going to do that. The rules of 12 Months, 12 Genres are ultimately my own. While I want to get back on track, I think, ultimately, if I have 12 first drafts (or maybe with some light tweaking afterward) at the end of the year, isn’t that good enough? Because if I can’t cut myself this slack, I really might cut my losses and stop writing at all.
I don’t want to do that, though. I have some fun ideas for several of the months to come, and I don’t want to see them cast aside because of feeling like I’ve failed. But I also don’t want to perpetuate the cycle that sees me sprinting at the end of a month to finish on time, need some time to recover at the start of the next month so I fall behind, and then not ramp back up the words again until the end of that month, only to fall into the cycle all over again.
I will continue to write every day. And, with luck, the Mystery will be done by the end of April, along with the Historical Fiction novel. But that doesn’t mean I’ll slack on that story. My plan is to keep as on pace with that one as I can, while also working on the Mystery. It will involve me dedicating more time than I have been per day to writing, not to mention the knowledge that there’s still some plotting to do for May that will require my attention. But if I keep at it, the stress should go down, and hopefully the fun will go up. But only time will tell.
This means I’ll have to stop waiting until the end of the day to write, so I actually get a decent amount of words on the page, and will be less inclined to cut and run in order to get to bed (when half the time I’m up scrolling stuff online anyway). It also means I’m going to structure my day so the other things I like to do regularly (looking at you, Pokémon Go walking) can still happen, without taking my life over so I shove writing to the side. And it should mean more time with my family. I think they’d like that?
Whatever the case, spring break has started, so these plans might already be out the window. My son will have a friend sleeping over tomorrow night, after all. That might lead to us all being the fools come Saturday morning when we haven’t gotten any sleep. Or maybe the joke will be my son will actually sleep in for once?