One Scary Thing Per Day
June 11th, 2020 16:19![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ceruleanmorningsI've discovered a method that seems to be working so far: one scary thing per day.
What exactly does that mean? Well, if I spend today talking to doctors and scheduling surgeries, I won't also try to dust the whole house. If I'm starting seriously fixing my novel for submission to my writers' group, I'm not going to do that on the day I also have to go outside and spend hours shopping during quarantine conditions. I guess it's less of a 'scary' thing but rather a 'big' thing. It doesn't necessarily have to be time-consuming - I mean with surgery scheduling sometimes it's literally a single message or a phone call, but the anxious feeling it leaves behind kind of permeates throughout the whole day. I can only handle one big thing a day right now, so that's what I'm doing. On top of steadily working, that is.
And I have been! Working! Seriously! OK, so up until today I haven't been touching my novel, but I have been writing fanfic when, again, I don't feel like writing anything for a long time now. I've been keeping up at least a full hour of serious concentrated writing every day for the past...uh...five days now? All the while doing a lot of other life things that needs to be done - such as the aforementioned surgery scheduling, cleaning the house when I've literally been putting it off for months, and all that. That counts for something, right?
Well, today is another big step. I've actually arranged my schedule so I can do this, and that is going back to my novel and editing it. Yep. I will open the document, get to chapter 4, and edit it. Just like I did with chapter 3. I'm king of leaving chapter 3 off for now because I think it needs more editing than 4, and I really, really need to start writing 5, which I can't do until I sort out 4 because they're super related, so. That is my big scary thing today. I actually am not sure if I'll finish editing in one session, but you know what, I'll just finish it tomorrow it gets too much. It's fine. And afterwards I will buy myself something to celebrate, because small rewards are so important for motivation, you know?
Wish me luck!
What exactly does that mean? Well, if I spend today talking to doctors and scheduling surgeries, I won't also try to dust the whole house. If I'm starting seriously fixing my novel for submission to my writers' group, I'm not going to do that on the day I also have to go outside and spend hours shopping during quarantine conditions. I guess it's less of a 'scary' thing but rather a 'big' thing. It doesn't necessarily have to be time-consuming - I mean with surgery scheduling sometimes it's literally a single message or a phone call, but the anxious feeling it leaves behind kind of permeates throughout the whole day. I can only handle one big thing a day right now, so that's what I'm doing. On top of steadily working, that is.
And I have been! Working! Seriously! OK, so up until today I haven't been touching my novel, but I have been writing fanfic when, again, I don't feel like writing anything for a long time now. I've been keeping up at least a full hour of serious concentrated writing every day for the past...uh...five days now? All the while doing a lot of other life things that needs to be done - such as the aforementioned surgery scheduling, cleaning the house when I've literally been putting it off for months, and all that. That counts for something, right?
Well, today is another big step. I've actually arranged my schedule so I can do this, and that is going back to my novel and editing it. Yep. I will open the document, get to chapter 4, and edit it. Just like I did with chapter 3. I'm king of leaving chapter 3 off for now because I think it needs more editing than 4, and I really, really need to start writing 5, which I can't do until I sort out 4 because they're super related, so. That is my big scary thing today. I actually am not sure if I'll finish editing in one session, but you know what, I'll just finish it tomorrow it gets too much. It's fine. And afterwards I will buy myself something to celebrate, because small rewards are so important for motivation, you know?
Wish me luck!
