Last month,
I talked mostly about anger and its debilitating effects. Although still a
clear and present danger, especially in that the root causes don’t appear to be
in any hurry to uproot and plant themselves elsewhere, I’ve met with some
success in managing that emotional response better.
And while my
fifth Evil UnLtd book remains in the
works, I do have somewhere I can redirect and channel any politically motivated
anger in a more positive and humorous outlet. Well, at least the few segments
of that I wrote this month made me chuckle and that has to count for something.
Creatively
speaking, April’s focus has been on other projects. Two main ones, along with
some bits and pieces on the side. And work has progressed through the usual mix
of good days and bad days. Much as you’d expect.
In
reflecting on such a normal unexceptional month, I’m conscious of three factors
that stand out in the context of their effects on my mental health. One of
which is probably more damaging than last month’s anger, but there are two
which, I’m glad to say, have been of significant benefit.
Within the
first week of the month I managed to self-publish a collection of short fantasy
stories (The Tortenschloss Chronicles,
currently available for Kindle, folks, plug plug plug) and, in that spirit of
celebrating the small victories that I’ve discussed before, deserved a pat on
the back just for achieving that and for meeting the deadline I’d set myself.
Yay!
But just as
the act of submitting a manuscript to agents and publishers comes with the
inherent and unfortunately likely risk of rejection, the act of self-publishing
and the necessary self-promotion that follows comes with its own set of risks.
Chief among them being releasing your labour of love to a deafening chorus of
indifference.
Yeah, that’s
a slap in the face.
Frankly,
it’s heartbreaking.
When your
advertising budget is zero, social media is one of your few avenues for
promotion and it’s seriously disheartening to see posts relating to your pet
project go ignored and unshared by 99% of your online followers, contacts and
friends.
Obviously, my huge heartfelt appreciation goes out to the 1%. Many
many thanks to them.
But it’s
worth clarifying, this is not about that vast majority. Everyone leads busy
lives and it’s fully possible such posts go unnoticed in a lot of people’s
timelines and twitter streams and what have you. I daresay I miss loads from
others and for that, what can I say, I apologise.
This is
purely and simply about how it affects me.
This, in many
respects more hurtful than the persistent rejection from agents and publishers
that was such a feature of the traditional publishing approach, is tremendous
nourishment for the Black Dog. It invites that worst of NATs – my old enemy, “What’s the point?” – right
back in to take up residence. And my brain does a little danse macabre around
the notion of quitting altogether.
Yeah. It’s
probably one of the highest-yield fuels for giving up that I’ve encountered in
recent years. And that’s hard, because my writing is me, it’s my life, and
ultimately its purpose, its raison d’etre, like mine, is to be read. If it’s
not, then I’m living in a vacuum.
What’s
especially frightening about that life-hurdle is that for right now I have no
answer. All I have is to keep going – keep writing – in hopes of different
results. And that, my friends, is close to the definition of insanity.
So, yes,
April had its unhelpful share of black days. Days of derailing that, despite my
having skated close to getting all caught up, put me right back to behind
schedule. With the sense of constantly chasing just to get nowhere.
Scary.
Although fast-approaching deadlines is at least a terror I can deal with.
Applying a little temporal juggling, pushing back a few projects by a couple of
months I’ve at least made the weeks ahead look more manageable.
Luckily, the
actual horror days were few. Not something that could be said to have
characterised my whole month. They were a significant and worrying feature and
a pitfall I have to be very much aware of – not least because I have to come up
with some sort of answer to them. Some better way of dealing with them. Ideas
on a postcard, please.
Countering
them were those factors that lifted me and helped keep me afloat. Factors that,
now that I come to write about them, strike me as the simplest, trifling
things. They’re not actual trifles, mind you. I didn’t binge on puddings. Tried that before, you just get fat and depressed.
First and
foremost has been my weekly morning swim. Every Wednesday morning, I’ve been
hauling my insomnia-heavy carcass out of bed and dragging it up the hill to the
local leisure centre to go several lengths of the pool. It’s been a daunting
adjustment and many a Wednesday morning has been a battle, I don’t mind telling
you.
But this
month, something changed.
On the
eighth week of this enforced habit, I sensed a shift between the swim being
something I made myself do to something I wanted to do. It wasn’t some dramatic
revelation or epiphany or anything, but it was a change that dawned on me
nevertheless as I emerged from the pool on the second week of April.
Breathlessness almost – almost – felt like exhilaration. And whereas before I
was always mindful to congratulate myself on just getting out of bed at stupid
o’clock, that day it felt really good.
Now, take it
from me, I have no natural inclination towards physical exercise – well, not
solo anyway – and I’m a long way from physical fitness, but I thoroughly
recommend something like this in anyone’s ongoing fight against depression.
Aside from two very unexpected anxiety attacks in the pool on separate
Wednesdays – both of which I think I coped with and reined in pretty well –
I’ve found that the Black Dog doesn’t seem to like water. It hasn’t, so far,
seemed to want to join me on my swim.
Even on the
gloomier Wednesdays, when reticence was at its peak and I walked up the hill
like a leaden sloth, my head and heart were relatively clear as I swam. And
hopefully, if my experience in April is any indicator, this is one habit that’s
going to continue to be beneficial.
In addition
to the swim itself, I maintained the habit of reporting on the swim on
Facebook, I guess to keep me honest as well as to reflect on the experience and
assess my progress. But I feel like I can just now embrace it as part of my
weekly routine and drop the reporting. And maybe, as and when finances permit,
step it up to twice a week or more.
Something to
aim for.
Another
element that has been surprisingly good at colouring my April days has been
comfort TV. One particular low evening I couldn’t face any kind of work and
wasn’t even feeling up to frittering away the hours on a video game so I turned
to Friends. That’s Friends with a capital F, the TV show.
It was
always a favourite of mine and for me it’s the definition of comfort TV. Alongside
the continuing Doctor Who
rewatchathon (which has the additional benefit of inviting Facebook discussions) it’s proven a great mood-elevator, just an episode (or two, if I’m
up early enough) over breakfast or maybe one for a half-hour break between
writing sessions, that sort of thing. The fact that I’ve enjoyed the episodes
all over again is no surprise, but I was surprised by how effective it’s been
as a therapeutic habit.
It’s a
simple case, I guess, of a little bit of what you fancy doing you good. So
whatever your own choice of comfort telly might be, I recommend it. And it
beats comfort food because, you know, you don’t put on weight and make life
difficult for yourself when it comes to those weekly morning swims.
Obviously,
at some point I will run out of Friends,
but I’m already thinking ahead to what other favourites I might turn to when I
reach the end of the series.
Hopefully,
between fun entertainments and the swimming that should go some way to keeping
me sane. (Relatively speaking!) And help counter anything that comes along to
work in the opposite direction.
Now faced with
an ultra-busy month ahead, it should be interesting by the end of May to see
which side is winning.
SAF 2016
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