Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Stressed

Generally I don't post when I'm stressed. When I'm stressed I get grumpy, and I don't want my blog posts to turn into long whinges. However, I am doing so today for reasons I hope will become clear later.

I've had a couple of holidays this summer, which were not stressful in themselves, but coming back to work after time away always makes me regret going away in the first place - the work piles up when I'm gone, and suddenly there isn't enough time to do everything.

I seem to have been struck by a series of ailments over the last few weeks - nothing serious or long lasting, but it has meant I've spent altogether too much time sitting in hospital waiting rooms.

We are in the process of buying and selling property, which is a long, drawn out and stressful process. I'm not going to say too much about this at this stage, because English property law being what it is, nothing is set before exchange, anything can go wrong - and frequently does - before that stage, and so it's best not to assume it's actually going to happen until the keys are in your hand. However, the process involves dealing with estate agents and solicitors, which is stressful enough without all the other stuff going on.

Most crucially, though, I am still wrestling with the WIP. I am mired in the "my writing is rubbish" stage, believing the whole thing needs dismantling and putting back together, and I am not sure where to start.

However, I am starting to think that life stress is connected to writing stress and vice versa. When the writing is going well I am in a much better frame of mind and can pretty much handle whatever life throws at me. When it's not going well, suddenly all kinds of other hassle creeps in - notably, things that wouldn't be bothering me quite so much if the writing was going well. I started today with an early morning writing session that didn't go at all well - I spent much of that hour staring at the page thinking what I had written was complete rubbish. Hence, I didn't have a good day at work, either. When I start the day with a good writing session, the day job is much easier to handle.

So the only stress in my life I should actually be focusing on is my troublesome WIP. If I can kick that into submission, everything else should be a breeze. Even the house move...

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