I Have a Writing Hangover
And It Was Worth It
Hello Friends!
Yesterday, President’s Day, I took the day off. Shocking, I know! I never take days off from work on bank holidays because I (used to) see it as a day with little email traffic I could use to “catch up.” In my job, is there is no “catching up.” ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Bully for me.
Not taking days off is probably related to (or a results in???) the fact that I am very bad at resting and that typical resting-things (binge watching TV, for example) are not that fun to me and one of the things that IS restful for me is not making any decisions, i.e. what I do in my job all day. So yesterday, I didn’t watch all of Picard, which I still want to do, but instead
I wrote 6242 words over about 4 hours of writing time and yes I am bragging because it was a lot and it was hard and I enjoyed it and I’m glad I did it. I encourage you to brag about your accomplishments because if not you, who? I have not reread a single word of this, or really the whole 40k, and ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ that is future Kate’s problem. Writing1! It’s great!
The rest of the day was…eh. I rallied to do some editing (ok so not wholly a day off work) and then I combined a needed run with picking up my kid from camp2 and then we ordered dinner because I did not have the brain power to make the food for the humans in my house. I have the time, money, and privilege to do all these things. I’m very lucky.
I also took this morning a little slow. Read for a bit instead of jumping into my inbox. Did a little yoga after getting the kid off to day two of camp. I felt anxious about getting back to my inbox and tackling my to do list because I didn’t “work” yesterday and there’s a lot going on and I’m very behind (as always) and I LIKE my work and I want to do the things for my clients and ETC. But I didn’t. I stretched my sore neck and back and had another cup of coffee and got to my desk at a normal hour instead of E A R L Y to H U S T L E because my brain was still a little tender from all the writing the day before. Like a hard workout, you need a rest day after.
I don’t get a whole rest day, but the yoga and the extra cup of coffee and the squelching of the anxiety that I had to HURRY to WORK my regular job to make up for taking some time for myself the previous day really helped me ease into the day, and tbh I’m not that tired! I feel great! My writing hangover was gone about 10am and now I’m cruising down my to do list. Rest! It works!!! Also doing hard things because you want and find them restorative in their own way is also helpful and worth it.
Besides remembering to rest, I also have to remember to avoid the Writer’s Math that makes me think I can write 6k in 4 hours all the time. That’s a book in ten days!!!!!! Except it’s not and I can’t do that and it never works that way and my brain would melt out of my ears like a Junji Ito illustration. (Uhhhhh, if you don’t know who that it and you’re squeamish, don’t google his work.) Can I do that sometimes and then most of the time write like 800 words at a clip? Yep. That is more sustainable. And that’s what can get a book done.
The moral of the story is you can do hard things but you also need to rest sometimes. You also have to recognize you need to rest. You can’t G R I N D all the time and expect consistent, maximum results. Listen to your body, and your brain, and don’t forget to brag about all that hard work.
OXOXOXOX,
Kate
Writing is, of course, nothing but making decisions, but I have a good outline rn and these were fun decisions to make.
New York schools inexplicably this week off for “President’s Week” ????? But also Spring Break in a few weeks and this Southerner is convinced the school system just does this because rich people were going skiing/to Florida about this time anyway so might as well work it into the schedule officially.
At the end of every year of my newsletter I go back manually and add up all the words I've written for it over the last year. Every year it's at least a book's worth. Which serves to remind me that if I can manage to write twice a week for a handful of hours I can finish an entire draft's worth of words in a year. If I can find more hours than that I might be able to do it in less time, but a year is fine.
It's so easy to look at an entire manuscript length work and think "I could never write that many words", except I have, at least twice, since the newsletter is just over two years old. So, there goes that excuse. I find this helpful.
Have you seen this, on the intoxication of writing?
Troy Thompson
Be Drunk
Charles Baudelaire - 1821-1867
You have to be always drunk. That's all there is to it—it's the only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually drunk.
But on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be drunk.
And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again, drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything that is groaning, everything that is rolling, everything that is singing, everything that is speaking. . .ask what time it is and wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you: "It is time to be drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish."