Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Dear Real Life,

I started out composing this as a tweet, but then I realized I had too much I needed to say to Real Life today. I would like to begin by showing you the untweeted tweet, because Real Life is a royal jerk, and I think everyone needs to keep this in mind:

Dear Real Life, will you please stop trying to interfere with my writing? It's getting annoying.
Sincerely, me

I'm just getting over a bout with the plague, and hadn't been able to write for several days. This was bad enough, but at least I'm recovered enough to attain a seated position for stretches of time again. Of course, the day I try to start writing again, the neighbor decides to have his entire wooded lot serviced by a tree trimming company. EVERYTHING GOES IN THE WOOD CHIPPER. I'm pretty sure Real Life has a twisted sense of humor.

My view for the last two days, sans the EXTREMELY LOUD NOISES.
Just when I think it's safe to sit down and concentrate for a while, they crank that puppy up and RAKWWWKKGGRRRRRGRRRGRRRRR. It's like being attacked by angry bees over and over again.

I've also been helping Lulu with some projects for school. She had to build a useful object from recycled materials for her Inventions and Innovations class. This was fun, but time consuming. Have you ever tried to build a working greenhouse out of old muffin boxes and yogurt cups? She darn well better get an A on it, is all I'm saying.

Then there have been numerous errands. Numerous things to take care of. After four days in the Blanket Fort fighting the plague, all those little things start to pile up. I still have to do them. They didn't magically take care of themselves in my absence. The jerks.

All this means is that on top of feeling guilty for not writing, especially when I love my current draft, I also feel quite paranoid that I'm still not caught up on all the necessities. Anxiety is not a frame of mind that's conducive to focused writing. So then I feel even more guilt, which adds to the anxiety, and you see the horrible pattern emerge.

What I realized today was that Real Life wasn't causing my problem. I can't stop that bus. I either grab on and go for the ride, just like everyone else, or sit on the bench and never get anywhere. Nope. I realized that *I* am causing my problem.

Not much I can do about all the piddly stuff. I'm getting caught up as fast as possible. And I wrote more than a thousand new words last night. Progress is progress, and I will choose to be happy about it. Sure, it's not the 10,000 words I could have written while I was sick, but didn't. It is 1,000 more words than I had yesterday at this time.

There's also a pile of boring, mundane crap I need to do. Pay bills. Collect Girl Scout Cookie money and deposit it. Paperwork for summer camp registration. Balance the checkbook. Correspondence that needs to be handled (most sincere apologies if you're waiting for email from me). But I'm working my way through that, too.

There are things that will always need to be done, but I have to keep reminding myself that I can't do everything all at once. I'll just do as much as I can, and try not to let it get to me. Even with Real Life throwing wood chippers in my way.

The words will come. I'll give them as much time as they need, within reason. So now, to the store to pick up the forgotten items from the list, and then home again just in time for the Evening Rush to start up here. Homework, dinner, tv, family. It might interfere with my writing, but I only have one family, and they deserve some of my time, too. Eventually, hopefully by 7 or 8 tonight, they'll leave me alone to play with the words again. It's all I ask from today.

2 comments:

  1. Thank you. Needed this today. Real Life is everywhere.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Best of luck. Real life really kicked me in the butt when I got a full-time job ;) But we shall conquer it!

    ReplyDelete

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