You know how sometimes you have that moment of knowing you're in exactly the right place you need to be right now, surrounded by exactly the right people and doing exactly the right things (even if they're difficult)? That's how I'm feeling right now.
Being social is still a challenge, but one that's lessening with the adjustment in my brain fixers. Given that my job kind of requires this, that's a good thing. Given too that my psyche kind of requires this, or at least small amounts of this, it's a good thing.
There isn't an end in sight ever, really, and I suppose that when there is, then it's time to call it a day for this lifetime, but at least I'm back to feeling some kind of equilibrium. Writing always helps. I should tattoo that on my hands.
Friday, January 17, 2014
Thursday, January 9, 2014
oh happy day
Not crazy, over-the-top, unreal happy, but pleasant and not in the depths of depression happy, which is maybe more like content, but either way, it's due to getting the dose right on my meds. Thank. The. Gods.
One of the things I hate the most about depression is how it warps my view of myself and how I perceive others to be reacting to me. When I'm in the dark depths, I am convinced that everyone can see all my flaws just like I can, that they all know what an imposter and faker I am, and that they're hating me for it. I can FEEL it, and sometimes my ear matrixes sound so that I can almost hear it. Even though I know what I'm feeling and perceiving isn't real and isn't permanent, it doesn't take away the horribleness of that feeling. Sorry mindfulness and positive-psych-pushers. It's all well and good to cognate, but the underlying feeling of SHITE is still there, and still sucks, and still needs medication (for some of us) to go away.
This needs to be the time I don't shame myself for taking medication, and in a few more weeks, when I feel like sometime approaching normal and my perception of myself and the people around me is something approaching real, I need to not try to convince myself that I really don't need serotonin. Because I do. And that's just how it is.
Anyhoo, I thought an update was due, so here 'tis. I'm not out of the dark yet, but I'm in the light gray, at least, and that's just fine.
One of the things I hate the most about depression is how it warps my view of myself and how I perceive others to be reacting to me. When I'm in the dark depths, I am convinced that everyone can see all my flaws just like I can, that they all know what an imposter and faker I am, and that they're hating me for it. I can FEEL it, and sometimes my ear matrixes sound so that I can almost hear it. Even though I know what I'm feeling and perceiving isn't real and isn't permanent, it doesn't take away the horribleness of that feeling. Sorry mindfulness and positive-psych-pushers. It's all well and good to cognate, but the underlying feeling of SHITE is still there, and still sucks, and still needs medication (for some of us) to go away.
This needs to be the time I don't shame myself for taking medication, and in a few more weeks, when I feel like sometime approaching normal and my perception of myself and the people around me is something approaching real, I need to not try to convince myself that I really don't need serotonin. Because I do. And that's just how it is.
Anyhoo, I thought an update was due, so here 'tis. I'm not out of the dark yet, but I'm in the light gray, at least, and that's just fine.
Thursday, December 19, 2013
dark days
My dad told me that when he was young, he'd gotten in trouble for DUI and had to attend alcohol abuse counseling. The counselor he worked with was in recovery himself, and laid down some of the fundamentals of alcoholism, including how the people around you enable alcoholism. When he came home to talk about it with his mom, she came unglued, accused him of blaming her, and he didn't complete the counseling.
Given what I know of my grandmother's upbringing, this isn't a shocking reaction. She herself had to deal with alcoholism, rarely drank, and definitely didn't have a healthy psyche. Er... not because she didn't drink, but rather because she never actually dealt with her "issues" (and not many in her generation did, it wasn't what was done). So as was (and is) often the case, the disease of alcoholism swiftly passed down to my dad, aided by genetic and environmental factors.
Threaded into those factors, almost certainly, is depression. I've done the dance with alcohol for sure, but also with depression. The older I get, the more aware I am, and the less I am willing to give in to the completely useless exercise of self-medicating with alcohol, the more I feel like I'm losing the battle.
I was thinking last night and yesterday about how the people around me have reacted to my own struggle to come to terms with depression. The struggle is, of course, ongoing. I recalled when I was first diagnosed and medicated, which was not so long ago. 2007.
Per usual, I spent a lot of time educating myself about depression after the diagnosis. I realized that I've always struggled with it, that it probably started to show up somewhere in my pre-teens, and that it dogged me through the years. Instead of viewing my struggle as a struggle with an illness, I viewed it as a personal shortcoming. A lost battle with personality defects. When I had a term and a biological explanation, I felt freed. But then I started talking to my friends and family.
Many of my friends also viewed my struggle with depression as a personality defect, something I could decide not to have. My family was (and probably still is) skeptical of my decision first to abstain from alcohol, and then to try to find a way to be healthy with it. (And that's a whole 'nother post topic, which I'll make some day.) Jeff was (and is) very supportive, though I think he wants to save me from my depression, to chase it away when the dark time comes, and it just doesn't work that way. Things have changed over time, but that's the initial reaction I had back in 2007 when I first started to try to deal with depression head on, with therapy and pharmaceuticals.
When I think back to my own reaction to various people I knew who struggle with mental illnesses, I realize that I too once thought it was a choice and a weakness. Maybe that's why it was, and is, so hard to change that view. Maybe that's why my friends and family have struggled with accepting it. Maybe if there is such a thing as mental illness, and it can't be cured by just making a choice to be happy, maybe that's really fucking terrifying. Because why? Because at the end of the day, I/we have tools to fight it, but it still comes back, every. fucking. time. And I/we have a very small amount of control over that.
I exercise, and that helps a little. I take vitamin D. I take Prozac. I'm experimenting with how food affects my mood. I do little CBT exercises to "cognate" my way through it when it comes. I meditate. I pray. My depression surfboard is an eclectic-looking thing. I surf, and I keep my head above water, but it doesn't always feel like a sure thing.
This morning when I woke up, I felt like I was losing the battle with getting out of bed. I did it, eventually, because there are appointments on my calendar, people who are counting on me. But I've been having mini-anxiety attacks at work for the past week. I fear I'm losing it, at least for the extra things, like planning big events and going out and doing presentations. And I can't afford that.
How can I explain it?
"I'm sorry, I can't go do this job you hired me to do because I'm struggling with depression and I can barely drag myself out of bed each morning?"
"I'm sorry, I know I volunteered to do this thing, but right now getting out of bed feels like facing death, no really, and I don't know if I can do more than the barest minimum."
"I'm sorry, I know other moms do all the things with the brightest of smiles and happy intentions. I'm an absolute coward and I'd rather stay home and hide."
That's probably not going to go over very well, and I certainly can't quit any of those things.
I have an appointment tomorrow to talk to my doc about all this. We'll probably do some more pharmaceutical intervention. I'll continue to exercise and fiddle with my diet. Maybe I'll pick up a light therapy thingy.
I want to be better. I want to get up every morning like it seems every one else does. I want to be excited and energized about my work. I want to look forward to meeting people, to reaching out beyond my office. I want to be good at organizing and connecting. I want to not only NOT feel like I'm whining, but to know that I'm inspiring people to do their best. I'm just afraid that I can't. And that is the most terrifying thing of all.
Given what I know of my grandmother's upbringing, this isn't a shocking reaction. She herself had to deal with alcoholism, rarely drank, and definitely didn't have a healthy psyche. Er... not because she didn't drink, but rather because she never actually dealt with her "issues" (and not many in her generation did, it wasn't what was done). So as was (and is) often the case, the disease of alcoholism swiftly passed down to my dad, aided by genetic and environmental factors.
Threaded into those factors, almost certainly, is depression. I've done the dance with alcohol for sure, but also with depression. The older I get, the more aware I am, and the less I am willing to give in to the completely useless exercise of self-medicating with alcohol, the more I feel like I'm losing the battle.
I was thinking last night and yesterday about how the people around me have reacted to my own struggle to come to terms with depression. The struggle is, of course, ongoing. I recalled when I was first diagnosed and medicated, which was not so long ago. 2007.
Per usual, I spent a lot of time educating myself about depression after the diagnosis. I realized that I've always struggled with it, that it probably started to show up somewhere in my pre-teens, and that it dogged me through the years. Instead of viewing my struggle as a struggle with an illness, I viewed it as a personal shortcoming. A lost battle with personality defects. When I had a term and a biological explanation, I felt freed. But then I started talking to my friends and family.
Many of my friends also viewed my struggle with depression as a personality defect, something I could decide not to have. My family was (and probably still is) skeptical of my decision first to abstain from alcohol, and then to try to find a way to be healthy with it. (And that's a whole 'nother post topic, which I'll make some day.) Jeff was (and is) very supportive, though I think he wants to save me from my depression, to chase it away when the dark time comes, and it just doesn't work that way. Things have changed over time, but that's the initial reaction I had back in 2007 when I first started to try to deal with depression head on, with therapy and pharmaceuticals.
When I think back to my own reaction to various people I knew who struggle with mental illnesses, I realize that I too once thought it was a choice and a weakness. Maybe that's why it was, and is, so hard to change that view. Maybe that's why my friends and family have struggled with accepting it. Maybe if there is such a thing as mental illness, and it can't be cured by just making a choice to be happy, maybe that's really fucking terrifying. Because why? Because at the end of the day, I/we have tools to fight it, but it still comes back, every. fucking. time. And I/we have a very small amount of control over that.
I exercise, and that helps a little. I take vitamin D. I take Prozac. I'm experimenting with how food affects my mood. I do little CBT exercises to "cognate" my way through it when it comes. I meditate. I pray. My depression surfboard is an eclectic-looking thing. I surf, and I keep my head above water, but it doesn't always feel like a sure thing.
This morning when I woke up, I felt like I was losing the battle with getting out of bed. I did it, eventually, because there are appointments on my calendar, people who are counting on me. But I've been having mini-anxiety attacks at work for the past week. I fear I'm losing it, at least for the extra things, like planning big events and going out and doing presentations. And I can't afford that.
How can I explain it?
"I'm sorry, I can't go do this job you hired me to do because I'm struggling with depression and I can barely drag myself out of bed each morning?"
"I'm sorry, I know I volunteered to do this thing, but right now getting out of bed feels like facing death, no really, and I don't know if I can do more than the barest minimum."
"I'm sorry, I know other moms do all the things with the brightest of smiles and happy intentions. I'm an absolute coward and I'd rather stay home and hide."
That's probably not going to go over very well, and I certainly can't quit any of those things.
I have an appointment tomorrow to talk to my doc about all this. We'll probably do some more pharmaceutical intervention. I'll continue to exercise and fiddle with my diet. Maybe I'll pick up a light therapy thingy.
I want to be better. I want to get up every morning like it seems every one else does. I want to be excited and energized about my work. I want to look forward to meeting people, to reaching out beyond my office. I want to be good at organizing and connecting. I want to not only NOT feel like I'm whining, but to know that I'm inspiring people to do their best. I'm just afraid that I can't. And that is the most terrifying thing of all.
Thursday, December 12, 2013
perspective
I just met with a student who's homeless. Here's what he told me.
He told me he came out here from Midwest for a girl. (He's 19). He said when he got here, her story changed. He worked at a restaurant, but the season ended. He worked at a cannery, but the season ended. He's being kicked out of the "Christian" shelter because he wants to go to school. (He's smart and thoughtful, scary to fundamentalists, I guess). He told me he didn't have a place to sleep tonight because the mission won't have him back. The next closest shelter is about 25 miles away. He has no friends here. His mother has passed. His dad won't answer the phone when he calls.
There was no lie in his voice, and he said to me that he didn't want to lie to the Mission (we told him to say he wasn't coming to school just to buy some time until his financial aid can arrive). He said his mom told him to think of others first, so he shared his food stamps with others. He told me that it's hard to get a job when you can't take a shower. He said it's hard to read in the shelter because it's noisy and people bother him.
I had to let him walk out the door into the rain and fog. He probably won't sleep inside tonight. He said he's coming back on Monday to bring me a paper that might let me help him. I hope he does. I really do.
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
at the end - NaNoWriMo
So I didn't win, by which I mean, I didn't finish 50,000 words by the end of November. In fact, I became paralyzed halfway through when I hit a rough spot at work and let it get to me. I think I'd do better with some group support, and maybe next year I'll find some local write-ins before they happen, rather than after.
That said, I do have a solid outline for a book, and a plan to continue working on it at my own pace. That's more than I've ever had before at the end of a NaNoWriMo, so I'll take it.
I'm not going to lie, it tastes like bitter failure in an old record kind of way, but I'm working through that. Every reason just feels like an excuse, which as it turns out, isn't really a great way to move myself forward, but rather a great way to be glued in place. Having awareness helps though, and so far that's been the key to moving forward, however long it takes.
This process of writing is much like witchcamp always was for me. Really fucking hard to get through with moments of beauty and epiphany, followed by weeks of crying and laughing and processing, followed by a permanent, though sometimes subtle, shift. So it goes.
That said, I do have a solid outline for a book, and a plan to continue working on it at my own pace. That's more than I've ever had before at the end of a NaNoWriMo, so I'll take it.
I'm not going to lie, it tastes like bitter failure in an old record kind of way, but I'm working through that. Every reason just feels like an excuse, which as it turns out, isn't really a great way to move myself forward, but rather a great way to be glued in place. Having awareness helps though, and so far that's been the key to moving forward, however long it takes.
This process of writing is much like witchcamp always was for me. Really fucking hard to get through with moments of beauty and epiphany, followed by weeks of crying and laughing and processing, followed by a permanent, though sometimes subtle, shift. So it goes.
Saturday, November 16, 2013
week 2 - NaNoWriMo
This may be the week that keeps me from winning NaNoWriMo. And it's kind of killing me.
I felt great about catching up on Tuesday. When I went to bed I was a hair below 20,000 words. I knew that Wednesday would be tough because it was going to be a 12-14 hour day at work. I knew I'd get home at 9 PM at the earliest. I hoped I'd have the energy to write. I did not. As with most events where I have to be Super Me, I was wiped out. I went to bed, knowing that I'd have day two of being Super Me on Thursday. I hoped that since it would end much earlier, and I'd likely be home by 6-ish, I'd be able to catch up. Instead, I was wiped out, and felt completely sapped of creative energy. Actually, I felt sapped of ANY energy. And I could feel the snarly little tendrils of depression begin to creep in.
By Friday I was fully engulfed. Today I either numbed out or laid in bed in my darkened room, occasionally weeping for no good damned reason that I could name. At one point, I was recalling times I felt I'd failed my children as a mother. My brain was in deep search of memories that would support the biochemical wonk going down. My litany is like so:
I felt great about catching up on Tuesday. When I went to bed I was a hair below 20,000 words. I knew that Wednesday would be tough because it was going to be a 12-14 hour day at work. I knew I'd get home at 9 PM at the earliest. I hoped I'd have the energy to write. I did not. As with most events where I have to be Super Me, I was wiped out. I went to bed, knowing that I'd have day two of being Super Me on Thursday. I hoped that since it would end much earlier, and I'd likely be home by 6-ish, I'd be able to catch up. Instead, I was wiped out, and felt completely sapped of creative energy. Actually, I felt sapped of ANY energy. And I could feel the snarly little tendrils of depression begin to creep in.
By Friday I was fully engulfed. Today I either numbed out or laid in bed in my darkened room, occasionally weeping for no good damned reason that I could name. At one point, I was recalling times I felt I'd failed my children as a mother. My brain was in deep search of memories that would support the biochemical wonk going down. My litany is like so:
- Simply Red – Money's Too Tight [To Mention] (and it is, and I'm serious, my cupboard is bare and we've eaten all the things you only eat when you're desperate)
- Tracy Bonham – Mother Mother (because I'm worried to death about my kid in Portland, see lack of funding and other joys)
- Danger Mouse – Dark Night Of The Soul - Feat. David Lynch (because I'm having one, and it's freaking my shit out)
- Little Comets – A Little Opus (actually writing a book is a BFD to me, one deeply tied to my identity and doing it, even as a shitty first draft is seriously messing with me)
- Soundgarden – Black Hole Sun (as much as I love the rain and fog, I now know without a doubt that I have SAD and that and my Oregon allergies are making ME sad)
- The Dresden Dolls – The Perfect Fit (just work anxiety and generally falling apart and feeling inadequate angst)
- Everclear – Everything To Everyone (because this month I also decided to try to be a GS leader and all the other things)
I could go on. I won't. I'm trying to take care of myself, to honor where I am and what I'm struggling with, to make some GD room for life happening the way it really is happening, rather than how I want it to be happening. Maybe I can give myself another month to finish my book. Maybe I won't win NaNoWriMo this year. Maybe that's okay. Maybe it's not. Honestly, I'm too dark to even care right now. So I'll go read and huddle under the covers and eventually this will past. Has to. Simon & Garfunkel – The Sound of Silence
Sunday, November 10, 2013
week 1.5 NaNoWriMo
I ended the week, as did many other WriMos with a writing marathon. And like most marathons, turns out training matters. Training in this case being less about miles run and more about words written. There were two days this week that I didn't write. That, plus a misreading of a word count calendar I have left me short, even after the marathon. Because why? Because I didn't do a good job training and I suck at anything that looks like math. Yeah, sue me. Figuring out the stats to finish NaNo on time looks like math to me.
The first day I didn't write was Tuesday. My partner fell and hit his elbow first thing in the morning while accompanying our sprog to the bus stop. He (my partner, not the sprog) is on a blood thinner because he had a heart valve replaced a few years back. He was the first guy in Arizona to have it done robotically. It was in the news and shit. If you're particularly good with Google, you might be able to track him down. Anyway, bruises are bad news for him because of the blood thinners. About midway through the morning, I texted him to see how he was doing. He said there was swelling. He is a notorious under-reporter, so I demanded that he bring his elbow to my office so I could judge for myself whether a trip to the ER was in order. He brought it, tried to hide it, but ultimately revealed what looked like a second elbow growing adjacent to the first. It was truly gruesome. I - not a fan of shows with graphic surgery, despite my horror fandom - could not look at it for long. We went to the ER.
At the ER, we generally made the nursing staff uncomfortable while waiting for the doc. Aside from the truly grotesque image of the elbow itself, once they found out he was on coumadin and that he - such a cliche here - hadn't been to the doctor as he should have been in months, they kinda freaked out. It didn't help that he raised his arm to try to relieve the pressure and a great gout of blood came shooting out of his elbow. This happened while only the two of us were in the room, and I swear to you, it looked like the worst special effect ever. The blood jetted out as if someone hid a smallish garden hose next to his arm. I thought it looked vaguely arterial and panicked in the somewhat British way that I do (though I'm not at all British), which is to say I calmly walked out into the hallway and said, "There's a great deal of blood on the floor - can you please come check this out?" By the time they got in there (seconds), it was done bleeding because rather than being arterial bleeding, it had been more like a giant blood-filled zit popping. The weird swelling on his elbow was gone, leaving behind normal looking damage from the fall.
The doc came in and explained it all in doctorly terms, made an appointment for the partner with a cardiologist (I cheered), tested his coumadin-levels and proclaimed it safe for him to go home. The whole ordeal took around 4 hours. We came home, made him comfortable, cooked dinner... and I could have written. I really could have. He was okay. We were okay. But I just didn't have it in me. I went to bed early.
That was the first "training" error of the week. I should have at least got in 1000 words, which takes me about 30 minutes. Seems that's kind of like skipping a training run. My second error came the next day when I only did about 1100 words. I should have done more, but I claimed difficulty getting the hang of working a full day and then coming home to write. This is like cutting miles from your run when you should be ramping up.
My third error was not writing on Friday. I had no reason. I just came home from work, decided to have a glass of wine (or two. Okay, I had three. Have you seen how big my wine glass is?) with the fam and relax. We had cable again. I played WoW. This was the most egregious sin of all. I could have made up for the earlier day off quite handily here. The reason I didn't was that I looked at the word count calendar, mistook the weekly total for the total total and thought I only needed to write 2500 words to be on track for the week.
Oh fuck.
I would like to state for the record that I made this miscalculation BEFORE I drank the wine. I can't blame being drunk. I just suck at math. And even though the calendar even has nice little blocks to help the numerically challenged such as myself, I'm not much better at spatial intelligence. Ask the hubs, who regularly has to do all the packing because when I do it, we use twice as many boxes and need three times as much room on the moving vehicle.
So I took my damned time on Saturday morning, which was the day of the NaNoThon, a day designed for catching up. I slept in. Why not? I only had to write 2500 words. And if I ended up writing more, that would be okay, but not necessary to my goal because I thought I was on track. When I finished at 2710, it was like I finished my race with a PR.
And then I looked a little more closely at the stupid calendar. (Don't bother pointing out that I'm the stupid one here - I know. It's a defense mechanism.) This was about 11-ish last night. I looked. And then I looked again. What I'd thought was the overall count was the weekly count. I wasn't ahead. I was behind. I couldn't even tweet. I didn't have the umph even for that little thing. I just closed my laptop and went to bed, but not before I did the math (correctly this time) that told me I'd have to put out about 3700 words today to be on track.
Did I already say oh fuck? Let me say it again. Oh fuck. With an illustration. This combo of disasters was like getting stupid drunk and eating crap the night before a race, then running the race with a broken watch and thinking that just because you finished while breathing, it was a personal record when in fact you were about twice as slow as usual.
Today I have on tap a meeting with my local writer friend. That's in about two hours. I choose to write this instead of starting on the mountain of words I have today. Yesterday I saw people posting word counts in the 10,000 - 20,000 range. A few were even higher. I have to keep reminding myself of last week's lesson. No comparing. And I find myself wanting to think nasty (defensive) things like, "Well what kind of quality could those words be?"
But that's the freaking point, Mo. It's not about the quality, it's about getting them out. (This is what I imagine you, dear reader, saying right now.) And also (you're still talking), it doesn't matter how many more someone else does. Just stick with YOUR method.
So I'll go to my meeting and enjoy it. I'll come home and do my best to come close to 3700 words. That's about a chapter. I can pull that off. I think. Tomorrow a friend is coming from Portland. That will eat up several hours of the day, so I can't rely on that as my time to make up word count. I'll try to set it up so I can move back towards the 1700 words per day goal. I think I can keep that up during the week. Think. Sorry Yoda, but here, there IS try, and if I'm lucky, do.
Good thing I'm not a Jedi.
The first day I didn't write was Tuesday. My partner fell and hit his elbow first thing in the morning while accompanying our sprog to the bus stop. He (my partner, not the sprog) is on a blood thinner because he had a heart valve replaced a few years back. He was the first guy in Arizona to have it done robotically. It was in the news and shit. If you're particularly good with Google, you might be able to track him down. Anyway, bruises are bad news for him because of the blood thinners. About midway through the morning, I texted him to see how he was doing. He said there was swelling. He is a notorious under-reporter, so I demanded that he bring his elbow to my office so I could judge for myself whether a trip to the ER was in order. He brought it, tried to hide it, but ultimately revealed what looked like a second elbow growing adjacent to the first. It was truly gruesome. I - not a fan of shows with graphic surgery, despite my horror fandom - could not look at it for long. We went to the ER.
At the ER, we generally made the nursing staff uncomfortable while waiting for the doc. Aside from the truly grotesque image of the elbow itself, once they found out he was on coumadin and that he - such a cliche here - hadn't been to the doctor as he should have been in months, they kinda freaked out. It didn't help that he raised his arm to try to relieve the pressure and a great gout of blood came shooting out of his elbow. This happened while only the two of us were in the room, and I swear to you, it looked like the worst special effect ever. The blood jetted out as if someone hid a smallish garden hose next to his arm. I thought it looked vaguely arterial and panicked in the somewhat British way that I do (though I'm not at all British), which is to say I calmly walked out into the hallway and said, "There's a great deal of blood on the floor - can you please come check this out?" By the time they got in there (seconds), it was done bleeding because rather than being arterial bleeding, it had been more like a giant blood-filled zit popping. The weird swelling on his elbow was gone, leaving behind normal looking damage from the fall.
The doc came in and explained it all in doctorly terms, made an appointment for the partner with a cardiologist (I cheered), tested his coumadin-levels and proclaimed it safe for him to go home. The whole ordeal took around 4 hours. We came home, made him comfortable, cooked dinner... and I could have written. I really could have. He was okay. We were okay. But I just didn't have it in me. I went to bed early.
That was the first "training" error of the week. I should have at least got in 1000 words, which takes me about 30 minutes. Seems that's kind of like skipping a training run. My second error came the next day when I only did about 1100 words. I should have done more, but I claimed difficulty getting the hang of working a full day and then coming home to write. This is like cutting miles from your run when you should be ramping up.
My third error was not writing on Friday. I had no reason. I just came home from work, decided to have a glass of wine (or two. Okay, I had three. Have you seen how big my wine glass is?) with the fam and relax. We had cable again. I played WoW. This was the most egregious sin of all. I could have made up for the earlier day off quite handily here. The reason I didn't was that I looked at the word count calendar, mistook the weekly total for the total total and thought I only needed to write 2500 words to be on track for the week.
Oh fuck.
 |
| I was so proud. |
I would like to state for the record that I made this miscalculation BEFORE I drank the wine. I can't blame being drunk. I just suck at math. And even though the calendar even has nice little blocks to help the numerically challenged such as myself, I'm not much better at spatial intelligence. Ask the hubs, who regularly has to do all the packing because when I do it, we use twice as many boxes and need three times as much room on the moving vehicle.
So I took my damned time on Saturday morning, which was the day of the NaNoThon, a day designed for catching up. I slept in. Why not? I only had to write 2500 words. And if I ended up writing more, that would be okay, but not necessary to my goal because I thought I was on track. When I finished at 2710, it was like I finished my race with a PR.
And then I looked a little more closely at the stupid calendar. (Don't bother pointing out that I'm the stupid one here - I know. It's a defense mechanism.) This was about 11-ish last night. I looked. And then I looked again. What I'd thought was the overall count was the weekly count. I wasn't ahead. I was behind. I couldn't even tweet. I didn't have the umph even for that little thing. I just closed my laptop and went to bed, but not before I did the math (correctly this time) that told me I'd have to put out about 3700 words today to be on track.
 |
| Lost it. |
Today I have on tap a meeting with my local writer friend. That's in about two hours. I choose to write this instead of starting on the mountain of words I have today. Yesterday I saw people posting word counts in the 10,000 - 20,000 range. A few were even higher. I have to keep reminding myself of last week's lesson. No comparing. And I find myself wanting to think nasty (defensive) things like, "Well what kind of quality could those words be?"
But that's the freaking point, Mo. It's not about the quality, it's about getting them out. (This is what I imagine you, dear reader, saying right now.) And also (you're still talking), it doesn't matter how many more someone else does. Just stick with YOUR method.
So I'll go to my meeting and enjoy it. I'll come home and do my best to come close to 3700 words. That's about a chapter. I can pull that off. I think. Tomorrow a friend is coming from Portland. That will eat up several hours of the day, so I can't rely on that as my time to make up word count. I'll try to set it up so I can move back towards the 1700 words per day goal. I think I can keep that up during the week. Think. Sorry Yoda, but here, there IS try, and if I'm lucky, do.
Good thing I'm not a Jedi.
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