Yesterday was without a doubt the hardest I have worked to get the required number of words out for Table Rappers Persistent Spirit. Sunday morning arrived with still over 1600 words to complete, plus a number of urgent work-related tasks (on a Sunday? Yes - it goes with the territory).
Having the weekly deadline of getting an audiobook episode out there and in the ears of eager fans is a huge productivity boost, and has been the major motivation in getting this far without seriously falling behind. I could not accurately describe yesterday’s experience as writer’s block, more perhaps writer’s stall. Words merely seeped onto the mostly blank computer screen, and those words were rarely good enough not to be heavily edited. Character voices failed, interesting descriptions stayed well and truly embedded in my visually orientated brain, and the distractions of the internet were more a matter of achieving tiny moments of success as a result of tapping a key or clicking a mouse button. Every word was pain, and it was a vile experience.
By the end of the day, however - and greatly due to the support and empathy of jEN when she arrived home from work - the words turned from seeping to a trickle, and eventually to a acceptably steady flow; the audio episode was published a little after midnight.
There is no doubt the demands of a heavy workload plus the self-determined schedule of 3,500 words written, recorded, edited, mixed, and published each week is a tall order. But days like yesterday bring me just enough confidence in my own ability to get it done, somehow. A positive result from this project seems more and more a reality.
This post falls into both “agony” and “victory” categories because the day was a major struggle, resulting in victory. Yet that victory is tainted with the knowledge that there are many more days of pain yet to come. Onward to the four-day, work-less Easter weekend and plans to finally get a head start on the schedule. 3500 words per day plus recording? After yesterday, the prospect is looking like a walk in the park in slightly inclement weather.
nothing fixes the soul quite like marmite on brown toast.
I’ve mentioned the concept of information overload before, both in real life and on blogs passim, but it’s come back to bite me. Again. For the first time in as long as I can remember, I went to sleep without the aid of a radio. I woke up without idly putting the radio on and dozing for 30 mins or more. I’m sat here at my desk, in silence (save for the buzzing of hard disks and the raging gales outside). And I hate it. It’s information cold turkey, in my mind. There’s nothing going in to distract me, there’s nothing going out except stuff that I need to do. I’m not procrastinating, I’m just doing stuff without being on autopilot for the first time in ages. I’ve also removed the distractions from my browser - all the site bookmarks I check for info/news/etc, all the blogs, all the stuff that I can use to either waste time or just fill the gap between one project and the next. As well as removing bookmarks, I’ve done some stuff to prevent me looking at non-bookmarked sites (news, etc) - it’s a hosts file hack if you’re of a geeky persuasion. The upshot of this is that when my URL autopilot kicks in and I type a web address that’s blocked, it goes to a blank page. I wonder for a fraction of a second why the page is blank, then I realise that I shouldn’t be looking at this sort of stuff, and get on with stuff I should be doing. I’m not beating myself up over this, far from it, but it’s concerning when, in the space of an hour, I visited 18 blank pages without even realising. I used to think it was smart to know what was going on in the world - now I realise, at least in my current headspace, that it’s just hurting me. And I don’t want to be hurt any more. Today isn’t going to be a good day, and I suspect the next few are likely to be horrible, too, but this is for my own good. I don’t like what I’m thinking at the moment, but I know deep down that when I do finally manage to tame my thought processes and use them for my own benefit, it’ll be fun. I like fun.
The thing with ups and downs is that there’s invariably a good run of either up or down, then something knocks it the other way, invariably in a big way. The thing with being me is less clear cut - I’ve perfected the art of going from ’sorted’ to ’shit’ in less than an hour. I’m having one of those days where I’ve derailed - I’m confused, tired, miserable - and I just don’t care about anything. I’m the master of my own destiny, and have an uncanny knack of pressing the wrong buttons without even thinking about doing it. Normal behaviour for me when I’m having one of my ‘episodes’ (as someone so politely called it) is to disappear for a bit and try to fix me. I suspect that’ll be me for the short term - I don’t know how short term it’s likely to be, suffice to say if it’s a moody fucker you’re looking for, I’m your man. Leave me be for a bit. Please. I’m broken. Take anything I say with a pinch of salt. Thanks.
