A friend of mine posted on Facebook this week, “Some days I just don’t feel like writing a novel.” I can relate. It’s days like these, when I am exhausted in mind, body, and spirit, that inspiration, not to mention motivation, utterly fails to make an appearance. Frustrating on days when I am due to write not just one but two blog posts.
This week has been an interesting one. My husband has been out of the country for three weeks. Work has been insane since I was out of town at a conference last week. This week, when I’ve had to work, parent, as well as do both his household jobs and mine, all I want to do is curl up in bed with a glass of wine and a book. For an entire day. (Maybe I should make it a bottle?) Thinking of something to write about has fallen near the bottom of the to-do list.
In addition, this week I received my very first rejection from an editor. I’m okay with it, I truly am, but even though I suspected it was coming, it stung. On the other hand, I also got a request for a full this week–thanks entirely to the kindness and generosity of a lovely person whom I have never met but who believes in me anyway. I now have to get off my ass and finish the last few pages of edits and send it off before she changes her mind. Refer above to the comments regarding exhaustion. But it’s good.
Some days no one feels like writing a novel, or working, or mowing the lawn, or doing the laundry. The hardest thing about writing, at least for me, isn’t finding inspiration or doing the actual writing–it’s the management of everything else in my life. It’s carving out time for myself, to take care of myself, and I am spectacularly bad at that.
So I am resolved to take some time for myself today. The house is clean enough, the laundry is–mostly–done. Might have to do something about the lawn, but I’ll call that exercise.
How do you take time for yourself?