So here we are—one week into my personal challenge of writing a book per month for the duration of 2024. How did I do?
Not too bad. Not perfect, but not awful enough to plunge me into despair and self-doubt and make me give up within twenty-four hours of the start of the new year. I did that with my resolution to eat better. Went out January 2 for supplies and bought Mounds bars and Cheese Doodles and other unhealthy stuff, which I binged on over the rest of the week. This is not how diets work. Still, it wasn’t a resolution per se, so I can let it go. I just have to be careful not to do that again. Or not do it too often. Maybe I can sneak up on a healthy diet and then give up junk food for Lent. Kind of a practice run. Like the way I’m sneaking up on exercise. I leave the house and move around every other day. Once the weather gets better it’ll be every day. As I phase out the junk food (in particular bakery goods and candy bars with all their processed sugar) the pounds will drop off slowly without undue exercise. By the time spring rolls around and temperatures start to rise, I won’t be hauling around as much body fat and will actually want to move more. I’m slowly getting myself up to the point where I can stroll around stores without using a cart as a walker.
Slow, incremental changes appear to be the key, at least for me. I’ve tried self-challenges and resolutions in the past. My biggest problem seems to be piling too much on my plate at once. Then I get overwhelmed, give up in despair, and go back to my old bad habits. I do this with writing, too. It’s part of the reason I went on an unshakeable block for most of last year. Girl, relax. Build up those muscles, physical and mental, a bit at a time. Every day you do something instead of nothing is a win. Pretty soon the habit muscles will strengthen and you can push yourself a little further. I want to lose five pounds by the end of the month. That’s doable. Losing too much weight too fast isn’t good for you anyway.
I will not be giving up pizza. Just cutting back. My plan there is to treat myself to pizza every time I finish a book. That’s not too bad. Every time I sub something, I’ll have pizza and a soda. Yeah, there’s my motivation.
You’re welcome to try this approach as well, Keep in mind we’re all different, so your mileage may vary.
And now, the Week 1 update, positive division. I started work on a shapeshifter romance, and continued work on the original side project, which is currently in its second draft. I’ve been able to write at least a little something on one or the other, sometimes both, every day. I haven’t had to resort to flash fill-ins at all. I haven’t touched any computer games since at least three weeks before the start of the new year. My attitude has been upbeat, for the most part. I’ve been sleeping better. The fact I’m able to write and post two blogs within a week is a major triumph in itself. All this is while I’m working on a paid assignment which is due this Friday. See that? A couple deep breaths, a reduction in sugar consumption, and miracles can happen.
Things I need to work on: My resolve does tend to peter out as the week wears on. More than once I caught myself slipping back into my well-worn procrastination habits. They’re mainly tied to the laptop (that’s where the internet and all its siren distractions live) but I’ve got a couple of tricks to get me through. For one, I can write longhand, where the Web can’t get at me. That’ll work for the romance, but not for the other one. That one’s already longhand; I’m trying to type it into the system, rewriting as I go. For that I just go for a music channel and tie up the WiFi while I type on the hard drive. Once I get going I don’t have a problem. It’s the “get going” part where I stumble. If things get really bad I’ll just unplug the WiFi. I’ve found if I don’t write first thing in the morning, other obligations start getting in the way and I never get around to the manuscripts. Those are the days I end up frantically scribbling flash scenes right before bed. That cropped up a couple of times this week. Fortunately, I was able to scribble scenes from my works in progress rather than random flash. Eventually my lazy subconscious will realize it’s not going to win and back off. I wanted to write this post two days ago, but the bastard kept distracting me. And yet here we are. Take that, asshole!
Finally, a simple tip I got from Dr. Google is helping me tame my insomnia. Being old, I tend to go to bed early (average bed time, 10 pm) and get up at least once, sometimes two or three times, to clean the pipes. All too often I find I can’t fall back to sleep. That’s when the negative thoughts creep in. Every mistake I’ve ever made, every bad thing that’s happened to me, comes blasting back like a crappy rerun on TV Land. When I do finally fall asleep, I wake up afterwards feeling like shit on toast. Naturally, my attitude is in the hopper. You can imagine how my writing goes.
The worst time for this is between 2 and 4 am. How do I know? Because I’ve been checking the clock. Dr. Google’s solution: don’t check the clock, especially if it’s one of those digital ones with the glowing screen. Not only does seeing the time stress you out, the blue light messes with your sleep hormones and helps keep you awake. So last week I stopped checking the time when I got up for my pee breaks. And son of a poodle with a litter of puppies, it worked. I do my business, crawl back into bed, lie there for maybe a minute and then drop right off. When I do wake up and look at the clock, it’s around 5-6 am and I’d be getting up anyway. If you’re having sleep problems, give this a try. Again, your mileage may vary.
This week I’m going to see about shutting down the laptop at 7 pm because I’ve been having off-and-on problems with falling asleep to begin with. You’re supposed to avoid screens at least an hour before bed. I already blew that one today because I wanted to write this blog, so I’ll have to kick that off tomorrow. I’ll let you know how it works out. See you next week!
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