Finding the New Balance

So, with the move to Alaska over with—and I should probably do a post about all that happened there because…it was a STORY!—it’s time to settle in and make a new schedule. But…that’s harder said than done.

I’m a person of habit. I never really thought I was. I always saw myself as a person who could just change and move with the times, all willy-nilly as I needed to.

I’ve learned a lot about myself with this move. I’ve basically taken a year away from writing my own stuff. A year I hadn’t planned, but it was either write and kill myself by overdoing EVERYTHING or just kill myself while doing everything and not write on top of it all. My soul chose the latter.

But now we’re finally settled. We’re in a new house with the Sista Witch and her family. We’re getting to know the new dynamics of our family. The need to live together was real. Sista Witch’s hubby is my hubby’s twin and we were going to be at each other’s houses all the time anyway, and living up here is as expensive as it is hard.

We’ll be past this “transitional” part in about a year. Or ten. LOL! I hope.

But now it’s time to find a little balance and to figure out how to get things done. Quickly. Efficiently.

Or even at all. You know? I’d settle with “at all.”

Gathering the Plan

The first step to even getting my plan together is to get my metrics. Sounds boring as turds, but it’s not. It’s how I gauge how much I can do and what goals I can actually set for myself. Because my goals are always big. Like…big. Write 12 books in 12 months and fast launch them.

That never actually happens!

I know I need to do something like that. I know I can write kinda fast, but not that fast.

I also know that if I want to get serious, I need to find a way to make the time to ensure sometime kinda like this happens.

So, I’ve been working on tracking my metrics this whole time. Writing down how many words I write for myself each day. How much I’m writing for others. How quickly things are coming. How much time am I investing in scrolling through FB—because I can scroll through the same ten FB posts on repeat for a good hour.

Why? Like…why?

Dealing With Depression

I’ve had a crippling bout of depression since I moved up here. I’m isolated. I’ve got Hubby and Sista Witch and that’s…it. I’m socially awkward. I make people uncomfortable.

Which, apparently is a PTSD phrase for me. My parents used that phrase when they took my kids and then booted me from the entire friggin family. Every boss who’s fired me has used that term before I got the boot. Each boyfriend, fiance, best friend, just friend-friend has used that phrase before they broke up with me or kicked me to the curb.

I make people uncomfortable. I just need to own that.

But “owning” my truth is only half the battle. I can’t fix that part of me. I’m not a Chatty Cathy, or whatever people need me to be. I’m just me. I can be bubbly occasionally, but for the most part, I’m salty as the chips I crave. And I just stand there like a dope. Listening. With this distant look in my eyes as I’m visualizing everything people are saying. Creeping people the crap out.

There’s this fear that I’m going to be booted out of here, too. I’m so far away from everything up here. If this family tosses me out for making them uncomfortable, where do I go? And do I really have it in me to start all over again? Like, is that something I really even want to go through? Again. Like, can I see a better life somewhere else?

Depression makes the words stop. It could be anything that sets it off. That last “You make us feel uncomfortable!” statement sent me into a three-week spiral I almost didn’t come out of.

If I want to succeed, I need to find a way to pull myself out.

Using Books As Therapy

When depression hits this bad, it’s time to make changes.

One of those changes was to use my stories to communicate these emotions that I don’t emote well in real life. When the emotions ride high, my ability to speak is just turned off. My mouth shuts down and I just listen to whatever other people have to say. I take their garbage like they’re treasures of truth.

But when I’m writing, there are words. I can stand up for myself. I can tell people what they can do with their verbal vomit. My fingers express those emotions in the form of words and scenes and stories. Something my mouth sure can’t do.

Finding/Making the Schedule

So, now that I’ve realized I need to purge this clog of emotions that have been fowling up my writing pipes, it’s time to make a schedule and see if I can’t purge a bit more regularly. Get a healthy body, mind, and soul.

I’ve told myself I’m going to write for two hours each morning starting last Tuesday. I skipped one day because I was working the garden. Holy balls. That’s a whole post on its own. I fell short of my writing goal three days this week. But overall, I’ve got thousands of words and four chapters of a new story.

So, things are moving in the right direction. Finally.

And there might be some new books coming. Soonishly.

I might actually make this work. Again. For reals this time. Again.

FFS, I hope.