What with
one thing and another, I’ve been too busy this month to think about depression.
Why, I barely have time to dash off this blog post. But I’m going to squeeze it
into the schedule because, if nothing else, I find it helpful to processs the
last month before moving on to the next.
Actually, I
say one thing and another, May has really been about one thing. Owing to
various external pressures and life-torpedoes, I’d left myself too much to do
on one project, one that has an actual deadline, and rather than do the
unthinkable and request an extension I figured the only way to go was to just
juggle the timetable, postpone other projects (heck, I even put my weekly
Tortenschloss Chronicles on hold, and I never like doing that) and focus
exclusively on the main one.
It’s unlike
me, because I generally welcome variety. I find it useful, for example, if I
get temporarily stuck or inspiration dries up on one thing to be able to just
switch to whatever else is currently in the works and keep going.
Keeping
going is good, but it can also create problems. Days tended to blur together
even more than usual this mad month, with only weekly routines like my
Wednesday morning swim (still going strong!) and the Thursday night pub quiz to
help me tell the days apart. The concept of weekends has been long forgotten.
You pack
yourself off to bed thinking about which chapters/scenes you’ll be working on
tomorrow, you lie awake thinking about the same, when you do sleep you dream
about it and your subconscious totally screws with your carefully laid plots
and then you get yourself up and try to remember where you were, then press on
with the day’s leg of the Great Writing Race.
At least in
the face of the Mountain Of Stuff To Do I was able to apply some lessons
previously learned. That is, if a task seems on the daunting side, break it
down into manageable pieces and tackle those pieces one individually, try not
to think about the Mountain, just one handhold/foothold at a time.
In this
case, that meant setting myself daily wordcount quotas and breaking those down
further: for instance, on a ‘heavy’ day, a couple of hours at the cafe, an hour
after lunch, break, another hour, break, another hour, dinner plus a spot of
TV, an hour and a half in the evening, break, then another hour or so to finish
off. Lighter days would balance that schedule out to some extent.
There were
days that I didn’t feel like doing anything, but that wasn’t an option. On the
flip side, there were days that went really well and I met my quota ahead of
schedule. There, I had to be a little wary and I’d generally not allow myself
to go over my quota, the trick being to avoid burnout the following day.
Discipline was key.
Where that
discipline sometimes did me no favours was in the matter of leisure time. I’d
occasionally polish off the day’s work, find myself with free time (what?) and
be utterly stuck as to what to do with it. Empty hours and a total inability to
decide what I felt like doing. Film? No. TV? Don’t fancy it. Video game? Meh.
Read? God no, my eyes are so bloody tired.
As though
I’d locked my brain into work gear and it was the only thing it knew.
My epic
journey through old Doctor Whos continued, with an episode to accompany
breakfast, and I had series to follow (The Expanse, Orphan Black) one episode
per day with dinner, but any available time outside of that routine was
difficult and sometimes scary. Later in the month, I chanced across the game
Life Is Strange on special offer and that offered a bit of rationed escapism
that restored my enjoyment of video games at least. Playing music good and loud
was also a helpful release and this month I journeyed through my complete
collection of Yes – which is pretty affirmative.
There were
also times when I stopped when there would be tears. I guess just a release of
stress and built up emotion, which is to be expected. There was perhaps one
major low and that was provoked by having to complete my tax credits renewal
form, a task I’d put off and put off because I knew what it would entail.
It’s an easy
form to fill, not many boxes to tick or fill in, but one of them pertains to
your self-employed income. And I confess, having to put that ZERO in really
fucking hurt. All the familiar plague of Negative Automatic Thoughts returned,
including my archenemy, “What’s the point?”
Yeah, that
day was a battle. And I slipped behind schedule.
But somehow
I got back on my skates and caught up, actually had a really successful and
productive day the very next day. I couldn’t tell you how, with any certainty,
but I can only assume it had something to do with the compartmentalisation.
I.e. because I’d broken down the month into manageable segments, it was a matter
of sort of throwing away yesterday’s broken piece and getting on with the
following day’s share.
Anyway, there in a wordy nutshell is my month
of May.
In some
respects, the level of busy-ness proved helpful, but it can be something of a
carpet that problems get swept under. At the end of it all, I am able to say I
dunnit. The project is complete, to first draft, and so I’m able for June to
just address edits before submitting to the editor – within deadline, yay! –
and have room to return to those other projects which had to wait so patiently
in the background.
For that,
self-congratulations are due. And I firmly believe that’s something we should
never be afraid of – to give ourselves credit, even a big shiny medal and a
glass of something to celebrate, why not. Given how much we beat ourselves up
for the things we don’t manage, we owe ourselves that.
My main
reward though at the end of all that, is to reintroduce that concept of
weekends into my routine. Doesn’t have to be a full two days, nor does it have
to necessarily be on a Saturday/Sunday, but I think one day per week where I
give myself permission to switch off my brain will be truly valuable.
Before any
of that, though, and because I promised myself this as far back as May 1st
when I broke that Mountain up into bite-size chunks, June will commence with
*THREE* *DAYS* *OFF*
Amen to
that.
SAF 2016
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