Thursday 13

I’ve always kept myself busy with work, church, the SCA, the Loopy Ladies Knitting Group, the Boucle Yarn Studio Sock Club, the Harry Potter Knitting Crochet House Cup, etc, etc … I’ve enjoyed doing those things (except work, but hey, gotta pay bills, right?) But lately I’ve felt like it was a chore. Something I had to do, not something I wanted to do for fun.

I am exhausted! I’ve written very little in the last six or eight weeks because I have so much other stuff going on that I can’t squeeze it in. I’m stressed and frustrated and tired.  It might be the pneumonia I had last March, or the stress from the expected flood, or Mom’s surgery in April or the stupid allergies that have taken over my sleep, but I don’t think that’s really it. I think it’s because I’m still living my life as I did before I became an author. I’m still spending my evenings and weekends helping others sew SCA garb,  working overtime, teaching people to knit, volunteering at church, etc, etc. But being a writer is really a second job. I can’t focus on writing and also do the things I used to.  Something has to change!

Here are 13 things I am going to STOP doing and START doing:

1. Stop imagining I have all the time in the world.

2. Stop working overtime. The money is nice, but I just can’t keep up.

3. Stop volunteering to do things when people don’t even ask me to do them.

4. Stop agreeing to do things when I am asked.

5. Stop feeling guilty for saying no.

6. Stop feeling like I have to attend knitting meetings/SCA meetings. (Not that I go to all of them now, but I feel like I SHOULD go and I feel guilty when I don’t)

7. Stop putting my writing second.

8. Start thinking of myself as a person with two jobs.

9. Start practicing saying “I’m sorry I can’t help you/attend that meeting. My time is booked.”

10. Start scheduling my writing time, just as a second job at McDonalds would have a schedule, and not changing it for any little thing.

11. Start scheduling “ME” time so I don’t get burned out. Reading for fun, going to a movie, getting a manicure, etc.

12. Start believing saying no and guarding my writing time doesn’t make me a bad or unloving or lazy person.

13. Start enjoying my life again.

Has anyone has to deal with this? Did you wake up one morning feeling like your life was a bullet train rushing off without you? What did you do?