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Writing Journal #4: Setbacks
Nov. 4th, 2016 09:13 amWord Count: 1,712.
I didn't write at all yesterday. So the promise to do it every day has already failed, and I'll have to start the counter over from 0. New goal: write every day from November 4th to December 4th.
So what happened? I just didn't make the best use of my time, to be honest. Work was very difficult yesterday, and I just had to get out of the office by the time lunchtime rolled around. As soon as I got back, I was scheduled for a conference call that a customer neglected to tell me they had cancelled. Traffic home was bad enough that it took me nearly two hours (4:00 - 5:45 PM) to get from the office to the burrow, which meant that I didn't have enough time to handle my Social Psychology midterm, outline my English paper AND get writing done. I chose to work on the first two, then cleaned up the kitchen, made dinner, and settled in for our traditional Disney movie with My Husband, The Dragon and My Best Friend, The Rat.
Afterwards, I *could* have sat down to write but at that point I was just too exhausted and didn't have it in me. But that was the decision point failure, my friends. I should have pushed myself harder to stay up and grind out those five hundred words -- even if they were no good, terrible words, making the decision to write even when I didn't feel like it would have put one more brick into the Tower of Words that I'm trying to build as a habit.
Today, I need to focus on making better choices when I come to those decision points. Do I dive into this hard case that's making me so anxious, or do I procrastinate by checking Facebook one more time? Do I spend my five-minute break shutting off my brain with a YouTube video, or can I use that time to practive mindfulness meditation? Same effect, though one builds better habits. We make choices about how we spend our time every moment. Choices become habits, and habits become routine, and routines become nature. I want to be a writer, by nature. And that starts with the choices I make.
I didn't write at all yesterday. So the promise to do it every day has already failed, and I'll have to start the counter over from 0. New goal: write every day from November 4th to December 4th.
So what happened? I just didn't make the best use of my time, to be honest. Work was very difficult yesterday, and I just had to get out of the office by the time lunchtime rolled around. As soon as I got back, I was scheduled for a conference call that a customer neglected to tell me they had cancelled. Traffic home was bad enough that it took me nearly two hours (4:00 - 5:45 PM) to get from the office to the burrow, which meant that I didn't have enough time to handle my Social Psychology midterm, outline my English paper AND get writing done. I chose to work on the first two, then cleaned up the kitchen, made dinner, and settled in for our traditional Disney movie with My Husband, The Dragon and My Best Friend, The Rat.
Afterwards, I *could* have sat down to write but at that point I was just too exhausted and didn't have it in me. But that was the decision point failure, my friends. I should have pushed myself harder to stay up and grind out those five hundred words -- even if they were no good, terrible words, making the decision to write even when I didn't feel like it would have put one more brick into the Tower of Words that I'm trying to build as a habit.
Today, I need to focus on making better choices when I come to those decision points. Do I dive into this hard case that's making me so anxious, or do I procrastinate by checking Facebook one more time? Do I spend my five-minute break shutting off my brain with a YouTube video, or can I use that time to practive mindfulness meditation? Same effect, though one builds better habits. We make choices about how we spend our time every moment. Choices become habits, and habits become routine, and routines become nature. I want to be a writer, by nature. And that starts with the choices I make.
