Writer Discovers Ego, Ego Writes Checks Body Can’t Cash. A lesson in understanding your limits and how to relieve the guilt.
Revision the Second, update 4
Well, the title is a weird one I’m sure you’ll all agree. I had a much better title but I paused in writing and came back later. That ship has sailed.
I didn’t do my revision this week, not only that I didn’t accomplish a bunch of other goals either. And we’re going to talk about it again.
Ego did the Scheduling
I’m not always aggressively positive about my abilities. But during my thesis classes, I accomplished a lot of goals. And part of the reason for that is because it was my only school work and it was during the holidays and my favorite months of the year.
I was in a good head space.
Everything was coming up well. As a matter of fact, I normally suffer from Seasonal Affect Disorder (SAD) and usually November thru March I’m a miserable person. With only the holidays bringing me any joy.
Of course, last year was pandemic holidays and no travel or family feasts. But, for some reason I was in high spirits, until about the end of January.
It all Catches up Eventually.
Yeah, I finished the novel and felt drained. I turned it in and walked away and didn’t work on ANYTHING. For weeks.
This year, I actually have a month-by-month plan. I haven’t shared all of the details here, but I have mentioned some of the broad strokes in previous Diary entries. It came up in my current classes that I should have a plan for this website and for the future.
So, I sat down and wrote out every single post for this site for the next four months. Put them on a calendar and looked at them and made sure I would have plenty of writing time for all of that. Then I decided to start adding in all the rest of my plans for this year.
Filling the Calendar
First, I put in the next five weeks of classes. Marking down the time I needed for my finals, my journals, my discussion posts. And my Ego said, “This is good. We got this no prob.”
Then I put in the time when I was supposed to finish the outline for the next novel and when I was supposed to start that novel. Outline done before the end of March? Um nope. And next novel started on April first? In the middle of my classes and two weeks before finals? Nope.
This was the first thing I had to change. I pushed the novel start out to April 28th, the day after my last day of classes, and thus added in the entire month of April to finish my outlining. Ok. Good. Starting to feel a little full here.
My Eye’s are Bigger than my Stomach
Wait. Forgot. I also wanted to start sending out query letters for agents. But I haven’t been writing all of them yet. Matter of fact I only have 1 and half written. I’m supposed to have 5 (MORE) written, revised, edited down to 1 page, revised again, in less than 10 days… while again doing class work… and revising the novel I’m pitching.
Speaking of which… March… only seven chapters of the novel are currently revised for the third time. Over 40 left to go. Well, on the plus side I only need the first few chapters fully revised to start shopping for agents. And while I’m waiting, I can totally keep pushing those chapters ahead.
Oh wait, there is that short story and that literary article I wrote… I need to email my editor and see about a possible fourth draft on that… more writing time.
Long Winded getting to the point:
I sat down and wrote out this schedule and just started putting everything on the calendar because my Ego was totally pushing me that I could accomplish everything. And I mean, this is great? Seriously, I usually think I “can’t do that” but not this time. This time I knew I could handle all of it. And yet I am not handling all of it.
I suddenly have the confidence I always wanted it, but I also have the pandemic stress, and burnout of finishing almost 5 years of school, all crushing down on me at once.
And you know what? It’s all OK.
Seriously.
It’s fine. All of these deadlines were set by me. I’m not a failure because I took on too much. I WILL get everything done. It’s just a matter of forgiving myself.
And THAT is the lesson I want to showcase here.
Forgive yourself.
Please.
We are all in this struggle. We are all having a hell of a time trying to adapt and stay sane in an insane world. I will freely admit that I get up in the morning and knock out school work for about 2 hours, write this post for an hour or 2 depending on my typos and how many times I forget the good headlines. And then I paint or read for another hour and I start to burnout and its only noon, or 1pm.
My brain (ego and whatever) then yell at me that I should write an essay, I should revise 2-3 chapters, I should paint for 3 more hours. But my body wants to turn off the computer and go watch Sentai, or read comics, or watch horror movies for the 20th time.
(Speaking of which I have still not watched my new bluray set of the Friday the 13th movies…hmm?)
I walk away from the keys. I sit down and read the comics or watch the movie. And for hours I will feel guilty that I’m not working on the novel outline, or writing the next book, or revising the previous book. I’ll feel like the most wretched person.
Then the next morning I wake up and do the revision, or work on the outline, or back to school work. And I get it done.
Inefficiency, but a Glimmer of Hope
Right now, I’m blaming my school work for a lot. Because I’m giving it the priority.
School work first, everything else second. I run out of energy in a matter of hours and then its movies or books. Once school is done, the novels take priority and I’ll be back on track.
Now there are ways to fight back against the guilt.
Trick: The LIST
Knowing that I only have a few hours of high output I like to make a list of things to accomplish. And the trick to this list is to make a ton of little steps to it. You want the list to be lengthy, but for each item on the list to only require a little time.
I mean, some of the items might require a whole hour, but make sure you also have a couple-three 5-minute jobs on there as well.
As you cross off each item you get a sense of accomplishment. And later on, if you’re sitting back with a good book (or whatever) and you’re feeling guilty about not working more. You can look at the list and see ALL the things you checked off.
You earned that book.
You can also add reading that book to your list as a must do activity.
I know that this might sound silly. But the psychological benefit does exist.
Actual Weekly Update, March 22-28, 2021
Lot of school work, had to write three papers. One of which came in over long and the others were still multi-page as well. Only a single discussion post, but I went over board on that as well and wrote quite a bit.
Comics were selling very well this week and we had to deal with the announcement from Marvel that they were planning to change distribution. Luckily, they seem to be handling it a lot better than DC comics, who as a company have tried very hard to screw over comic shops and the industry as a whole.
(Though we blame Time Warner-ATT and not the actual DC offices).
Also, totally updated this Website. My bio page has been changed, and the books and story pages have been updated and changed. Lots going on here, also thinking of bringing back the purple borders. (those of you who have been around since the beginning might remember that all of the dark read parts of my site used to be a purple color).
Movies and TV
This month I have made it through 4 sentai series and almost finished Kamen Rider X. The Showa era Kamen Rider is really tough for me to get through. But I’ll manage.
As to Sentai, I finished all of the series offered by Shout Factory. I then found a dubious website that will allow you to watch the other series. I had the option to go back and watch all the sentai from 1974 to1988 that I haven’t watched yet, or to push on through the 2000s. I choose the latter.
I finished Abaranger last weekend and this week have made it half way through Dekaranger.
On the horror movie side of things, I did watch a couple of new movies this month. Nothing special enough to suggest you all try out. I’m running out of things to watch on the TV to be honest… though I still need to do Wandavision… so yeah.
This Week’s revised Goals:
School work. Already partially done.
Query Letters. Try to get at least 2 roughs done this week.
Revision: At least 3 chapters (I will admit I am paused at chapter 7 because I either need to cut the whole thing, or rewrite the whole thing).
Outlines: Novel needs some love, and I’m pretty much almost done with the Call of Cthulhu idea I had. So that should stop stealing my time.
Painting: Need more cash so need to step up my side hustle and paint a lot more.
