Lately, things in my day-to-day non-writing personal life have gotten a bit hectic. Things completely out of my control happened and caught me by surprise, plus I had a great big list of Things That Must Get Done.
Shockingly, this change actually left me with more free time, but a great deal more stress, too. I managed to blog during my vacation (thank you, delayed posting!) but after I got back, and facing a scary look at the future, the spinning plates I’d been maintaining for awhile (including updating the blog regularly) started to slip.
I had time to write, so I can’t beg off with that excuse, but I had absolutely no inclination. It was like I had been zapped by a writer’s block ray gun. But more than that–I didn’t even want to write. I started to resent my laptop, even, skirting the room and glaring at it hatefully, because a tiny easy-to-ignore part of me was insisting that I needed to be there, writing away, keeping to “the schedule,” when I wanted nothing more but to go be a gypsy or something. (“Something” often meaning “lying pathetically on the couch in a hot sweaty puddle”–this is Texas, after all, and it’s bloody hot.)
Eventually, the stress abated, which is why I’m here again, writing, and similarly why I yet again have clean dishes to eat off of, freshly painted fingernails, and some well-organized personal files.
Every time I turn to the internet or Twitter for support, it seems I just find more “soldier on,” “write every day or else!” type posts, which just leaves me feeling sort of bad about myself. But I keep thinking: I can’t be the only one this has happened to. I can’t be alone in being paralyzed, rather than invigorated by, stress.
Or can I? Tell me, and tell me true.
Have you ever faced a time of stress that affected your writing? How did you handle it? Do you really believe in those “write every day” aphorisms?
M.E. Kinkade 