“Only entropy comes easy.” – Anton Chekhov
I must confess to going through a bit of slump at the moment, and I am finding it hard to find quiet time for myself to recharge. Part of that is due to a self discipline issue. I am currently not getting up early enough. Going to bed late. With cool mornings it is so tempting to stay snuggled in the warm sheets and drift back to sleep especially when you toss and turn half the night. Really need to break this cycle at the moment. It is really easy to slip into bad habits and I feel like I have been doing that of late. This post is about breaking that cycle. New week, new routine.
No more coffee after 12pm! I do love my coffee but if drunk too late in the day it does not love me. So back to tea and lots of herb tea at that, from lunch time on. Still coffee in the morning, (for the safety of those around me).
On a positive note, sunrise is at least at a fairly reasonable hour at the moment, roughly around 6.30, so the plan; I will get up early and go watch the sunrise at Picnic point, start the day on a high, greet the dawn, walk the dog, followed by coffee and pancakes at a new Dutch cafe in Newtown. Hopefully the first step in getting back on track with early starts.
I find I am most productive in the morning so will then try and give myself some time to journal and maybe give the blog some thought and nut out some ideas. Why do I blog? Most of my day is spent behind a computer screen. So why spend even more time behind a screen? Blogging has in the past been part of my job and pd, but it is not the case at the moment. I think I enjoy the discipline of having to write something but I must confess to being a very careless writer with a ridiculously cavalier attitude to grammar and punctuation, so I do apologize to anyone who actually reads this. The hope is, that practice, while it will never make me perfect, it might make me a bit more readable. So the discipline of the blog is something I need to nurture in order to help break these unproductive, negative cycles. Work is not intellectually demanding or rewarding a the moment so I think the blog is a bit of a substitute challenge, a counter to the entropy of the everyday at the moment.
Entropy is a good word to describe these kinds of slumps where my loss of motivation and discipline just seems to spiral in ever increasing circles of apathy. Nothing positive comes out of giving in to this, hence this post on breaking out of this cycle. Really the only way to conquer it is to institute discipline and re-direct some energy, eventually momentum builds and I can get back on top of things. Disorder may be the natural order of the universe but it plays havoc with my ability to achieve anything.
Do you suffer from these slumps, do you blog and sometimes just can’t find the motivation to punch the keys? How do you counter it? Do you sometimes hit slumps with reading, a kind of readers block? Do you procrastinate? I do. I am a master of the art of procrastination but sometimes you just have to keep putting one metaphorical foot in front of the other and drag yourself to the necessary destination, a metaphor applicable to study, writing and life in general.
“Entropy increases. Things fall apart.” – John Green Looking for Alaska
Gum trees and Galaxies 
I have the slumps – they’re physical. My chronic illness give me little good time every day, and it is not predictable when I will get it.
I try to save it for writing fiction, as I’m in the middle of a mainstream trilogy, and I’d like to get it finished in my lifetime. When the brain finally kicks on, I try to drop everything and get to the next scene.
There is almost literally nothing else I can do with my life. I force myself to take a short trike ride before it gets too hot, every third or fourth day; that day is then lost to writing.
If I didn’t love what I’m writing, it would be a dreary life, indeed. But I figure, if I’m going to be sick anyway, at least I will leave a legacy – and maybe increase the understanding in the world of both how disabled people are like everyone else in their goals and their longings, and also have to face mountains other people don’t even see.
Not how I planned to spend my life, but that isn’t uncommon.
I envy others – and try not to think about what they can do. And I try to tweak my habits where I can, to see if I can make things marginally better.
Beyond that, I try to be kind to my husband and kids and family – and do what I can to make this a better world.
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Alicia I can think of no greater achievement then to help others gain insight into the experience of some one whose experience is very different. You are so right about how hard it is for people to understand things like disability and really there is no excuse not to take the time to read something like your work, in fact fiction is sometimes the best way to get the experience across, facts alone do not always lend themselves to insight and empathy.
In your situation I am not sure how I would manage, I know how hard I find it to function when I feel foggy and low on energy. Good luck with the writing and stay safe.
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The thing is, my fiction is so mainstream that it hurts. It is NOT disability fiction in the sense that the disability or chronic illness is the focus of the story. Not at all.
The story is about people – one of whom has to deal with extra stuff. Most people who’ve read it mention that part very little in their reviews.
But it’s a part of reality that often gets ignored – which is odd as one in five of us has a disability.
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We tend to disregard the struggles of people around us and want to see perfect people in a perfect world but the world is not like that at all, we should all realise that if we are lucky enough to live to an old age we will all eventually experience some kind of disability, that thought alone should make us more sensitive to the challenges faced by others. Sorry did not mean to imply that you only write about disability. The world is a wonderful rich, conglomeration of experience and voices we should listen and learn from them all.
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Sorry – didn’t mean to imply that you did!
The main reason I chose to self-publish was that I didn’t want an endless round of “Nice – but not for us” when submitting to publishers. I was sure (still am) that the attempt to humanize characters would put me in a negative place with agents and publishers, compared to other writers with ‘more of the same’ or ‘similar, only different’ novels.
Publishing changes oddly, and not logically, but there are fewer and fewer spots on publishers’ catalogs, and publishers need blockbusters which will support the whole industry.
I still see enormous potential for this trilogy – but I have to finish it first. And I’m so slow!
I think seeing the struggle is good – that’s one of the reasons we read, to live other lives, even some lives we would be scared to attempt.
But the environment doesn’t allow many of the challenging books every year – because publishing is a business (and one which likes prime NYC real estate).
When I’m finished, I’m planning some heavy-duty marketing.
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We seem to be on the same track this week with a “come on and get yourself going” attitude. My reading has been in quite a slump during Covid, and blogging to some degree. Plenty of ideas, just lacking the energy to sit down and get it done. But I’ve started walking again this week and that is definitely helping to clear the fog from the brain. Love your comment about coffee and safety of others – ditto!
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The pushing forward is the hard thing but it has been a challenging few months and you have had the added stress of study and providing stimulation and entertainment for Dan, sometimes you just need a bit of a break. Walking is always a good idea.
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I used to be a procrastinator but there’s nothing like taking a giant leap and putting your working life destiny in your own hands for kick starting yourself I’ve found. I write my weekly chores and goals in a desk diary and stick to it for blogging, pitching work, all sorts of things. When I get those what’s the point slumps, it’s time to read, watch online talks or take part in courses that are by people I admire and motivate me!
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