This the 6th installment of the healthy habits for writers series.
The following are general life areas that very important. And they can bring to bear, a great deal of negative stress. Negative stress is the chronic, debilitating stress that threatens to block your productivity.
Stresses have threatened and succeeded in impeding my work on occasion. Still there are ways to manage them that can shorten their stay.
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I started out planning to write this brilliant post and I stopped. I got to the page and thought “I’m such a fraud. What do I have to bring to the page that others might benefit from? Really, why am I pretending to have something I don’t?”
Fortunately, I do have things, skills, knowledge and drive, that I can draw on. I know how to do stuff and I know how to get through the slow times, but I get hung up.
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You may already know, November is a busy month for frenzied writing if you’re inclined to have it so. I am so inclined. Last year I signed up for National Novel Writing Month [NaNoWriMo] and didn’t get very far into the month before I ran out of steam.
This year, I re-upped for NaNoWriMo and I think it’s going to be good. So far, the writing is leading me in interesting ways. The characters are developing and populating effortlessly. And feels like it’s okay because it’s early in the month. I say feels like because it’s been a very long time since I sat to write a long story. And I don’t remember ever having had any measure of discipline about the process.
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Recently, I watched an emotionally charged video. It was a sad story of a young girl sentenced to life in prison at age 16. At the time she made the video she’d already served 13 years. Her story, her voice, her tears were evocative, certainly. I felt compelled to be angry on her behalf. I was even skeptical of a commenter who said the young woman’s sentence was justified.
Beyond the fact that the content affected me emotionally, it got me thinking about just what made it such a powerful video.
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I was tired, chronically running on E, and sleep didn’t matter. It was a draining experience. All the life seeped out of me before the workday ended. By close of work, it was all I could do to get home and crash.
It was more like slide, really. All the energy I once had to go to the store or run other errands after work was gone. In fact, I was too whatever to sleep. I would just lie across my bed sometimes for hours, until I found the strength to shower, eat, and go to bed.
What was sapping the life out of me was work. It turned out I was doing the wrong work, or it was a negative work situation. And, when work is a problem, it can easily spiral into life. It took me a while to figure this out, and then to acknowledge it.
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