Burned out and Busted

Hi,
I related to your post.
I just went through a divorce, and though we are still friends my energy is drained. On top of this, one of my best friends (of the opposite sex) has revealed romantic feelings for me. This is great drama for my fiction, I know, but I am just so drained I can't get pen to paper or fingers to keys. Sigh...

Guilt. I set goals and if I don't reach them, self-imposed guilt for slacking gets my BIC.

That, and permission to write utter crap. If I sit down thinking I have to write a masterpice, I might as well go wash the dishes because I know it's not going to happen. If I give myself permission to write badly, so long as I write, it goes much easier. Besides, at least if it's on the paper I have something to edit. If it's in my head it doesn't count and I'll never know if it's utter crap, or not.

Also, I want to see if I can do it. I don't know if I'm good enough to be a full-time writer. The only way to find out is to write.

when i was very young, i had it in my mind that if you're not setting out to write a masterpiece for the ages, you're wasting your time. now, i just want to be entertaining. for me, just wanting to entertain takes off all the pressure to be a 'great' writer. i have those stories where i want to 'say' something, too, of course, but even then i realize that what i've got to say has been said a million times already and to take *myself* with a grain of salt.

i put zero pressure on myself to perform. that's why i'm not prolific. that's also why i'm almost afraid to try and get published, because then i'd be pressured to keep writing and writing and writing, and that would be, in nothing else, something i impose on myself. i don't want writing to become a chore, in other words. being published and making some side income would be great and all, but i honestly don't see it as my path to happiness.

it's the external things that get to me, if at all. i let most things roll off my back. when my batteries get drained, i just do something different to break the routine that lead me to being down in the first place. i've found that if i've got enough money to pay my bills and the wife isn't pissed-off, things are usually pretty good and i've nothing to complain about, lol.

friend coming onto ya, huh? hey, i was friends with my wife for seven years before hooking up with her (then a few years where she was my best friend, too). not always a bad thing. the scariest part is losing your best friend in the process. the phrase we put on all our wedding junk was, 'today i married my friend,' which pretty much summed things up. i mean, you want to marry someone you consider to be your friend, too, right? then who better than your *best* friend? at the same time, i'm the last person you might want to take advice from, heh heh.

edit: i *don't* put pressure on myself to perform. oops.

I write for 1 hour at lunch in the local pub using my laptop. It works for me.

Blue Texas said it. Guilt. I know damn well what I should be doing. Have to take friggin No Doz and Motrin just to get the mental stamina to perform and get BIC.

Tri

I fully relate. It's this stage of tiredness when your mind just doesn't function.

What I do in this situation, I use different tricks every day, I simply try to adapt. The "two hours every day 6 to 8 a.m. no matter what" just won't work when you're tired, I don't fool myself about it. If you can choose between sleep and writing, then you're simply not tired enough. So I just don't stick to any schedule at all, the only goal is to get something done today, however small or hopefully big. Mind you, I'm the ultimate control freak, goal-setter and and schedule keeper, so for me it was a huge mentality change. I had to drop all plans and goals in order to survive as a writer.

I'd say, just take it very easy, spare yourself, don't beat yourself up if you don't meet your goals: you're doing everything you can in this situation, and as long as you still write and produce something to show for your efforts, it's the only thing that matters, IMHO.

If you're too tired to write at the end of the day, write at the start of the day.

After reading Stephen King's "On Writing", I started writing every morning. I take my laptop to the restaurant, drink coffee, and write for an hour. Every morning I HATE writing, but by the time the hour is done, I LOVE writing and don't want to quit. I've done this for the last four years.

The only thing that gets me down is rejection. Every rejection knocks me for a loop. It doesn't matter how I try to rationalize it, it still hurts. It doesn't matter if it's a "Not for us" rejection or a "This is crap" rejection or a "I like it but don't love it" rejection. (Actually, that last one is the worst. WHY don't they love it?)

Usually, I can't write the next couple of days, but by the third, the trauma has worn off enough that I sigh, take my laptop to the restaurant,....

It never seems to get any better. After four years, you'd think I'd get used to it, but I don't. In many ways, it's worse. I know I'm a better writer now than when I started, but apparently I'm still not good enough.

The best cure for me is read over what I've just written. (Hey! It's not so bad. In fact, it's pretty good! OK, let's keep plugging away. Someday, someone will buy it.) And around it goes.

Roger J Carlson said:

After reading Stephen King's "On Writing", I started writing every morning.

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I did too! I finished On Writing, and that night had a dream—one of the oddest I’ve ever had. It kept bugging me, and hours later I realized what it was: the situation. Write from a situation, King said, and my subconscious had given it to me.

We've got BIC. Perhaps we need to add JDI to the lexicon - Just Do It.

BIC only works if the cat will get out of the way of the keyboard---

Shawn

SRHowen said:

BIC only works if the cat will get out of the way of the keyboard---

Shawn

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Just sit on the bloody thing. :faint:

All this conversation about writing first thing in the morning sounds especially masochistic today as the daylight saving time starts, at least here in Europe, don't you think? The clocks go forward... they rob us of one hour of sleeping/writing time.
On the other hand, it gets easier to write at night.

BIC

werencole said:

My inspiration to write is high, but the energy my lifestyle leaves me at the end of the day is gone, and with it any mental fortitude that gets my BIC as opposed to in my bed.

Discuss what gets you down and how you recitfy the situation along with how you keep writing while in the midst of life's doldrums.

-W

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I really don't mean this to be snide, but if your lifestyle leaves you drained at the end of the day, then either change your lifestyle or write at the beginning of the day.

To be honest, the only things that ever get me down are the few things in life I can't do anything about. I have diabetes and glaucoma, along with a few other health problems, and on occasion, these interfere with everything I do, and this can get me down a bit. But even here, choice plays a huge role. Depending on medical advances, I may always have these health problems, and they may put me in an early grave, but how I respond to them is a choice.

I don't know. I guess I've always thought that you decide what it is you wish to do, and then make whatever changes it takes to do it.

Is there anything you can change about your lifestyle to give you more time?

If you have to ride a bus or subway to work, carry a notebook and pen and write by hand. Invest in a small cassette recorder if you commute by car and dictate into it. We all waste a lot of time doing things we don't need to do (like coming here and reading and writing replies ) and ten minutes here and there add up. I like writing by hand. When I go to type the story in, it gets its first rewrite and I feel like I'm getting somewhere.

By the way, what is BIC?

Torin, who *should* be working on Book #3 in a series, but is online instead.

zornhau said:

We've got BIC. Perhaps we need to add JDI to the lexicon - Just Do It.

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In my writing groups, we call it BIC-HOK. Butt-in-Chair, Hands-on-Keyboard.

Of course, one can have the hands on the keyboard, doing things they're not supposed to be doing, like writing emails, or posting on BB's. <G>

Susan G.

BIC

Susan Gable said:

In my writing groups, we call it BIC-HOK. Butt-in-Chair, Hands-on-Keyboard.

Of course, one can have the hands on the keyboard, doing things they're not supposed to be doing, like writing emails, or posting on BB's. <G>

Susan G.

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Many in a writing group I used to belong to used BIC-HOK. Some found considerably more success when they added DI to it, for BIC-HOK-DI.

Although, come to think of it, I believe it was BIC-DI-HOK. Butt in Chair, Disconnect Intenet, Hands on Keyboard.

One of teh advantages to writing my first drafts in longhand is that I'm nowhere near the computer, a so the internet isn't a distraction while writing. I sometimes suspect that if the same amount of time was spent wrting as is spent on the internet, the world would be hip deep in finished novels.

It always seems rather iroic to find someone posting on the internet that they can't find the time to write.

Jamesaritchie said:

It always seems rather iroic to find someone posting on the internet that they can't find the time to write.

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It's a lot easier to sit down and ask a simple question, looking for some feedback and motivation, that it is to delve into a story. I'm quite surprised at the reactions. We're all here for different reasons - getting on someone's case because they are here too seems bizarre.

Werencole, I know what you mean about having the motivation, and not the energy when you finally have a moment. As hard as it seems, getting up a bit earlier really does work. Or try the lunchtime thing. Try it ALL, and see what works for you!

Ella said:

It's a lot easier to sit down and ask a simple question, looking for some feedback and motivation, that it is to delve into a story. I'm quite surprised at the reactions. We're all here for different reasons - getting on someone's case because they are here too seems bizarre.

Werencole, I know what you mean about having the motivation, and not the energy when you finally have a moment. As hard as it seems, getting up a bit earlier really does work. Or try the lunchtime thing. Try it ALL, and see what works for you!

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I'm not getting on anyone's case, and wasn't talking about anyone specifically. Just a general statement in reaction to a mention of the internet and forums. It is something I see constantly on the internet, and with many writers I encounter, it's a habitual thing. Add up all their posts on several forums, and you find enough time to write two novels, yet they're complaining about having no time to write.

Sure, it's a lot easier to sit down and ask a simple question than it is to delve into a story. But what does easy have to do with it? And when you get right down to it, why is it any harder to write than to talk about writing? Easy or hard, if you want to write, you use whatever spare time you have to write.

As for motivation, well, I'm not a real big fan of needing motivation to write.
I'll buy into motivation for writing when I hear people talking about motivation for other activities. I can't remember ever hearing anyone say, "I'd really love to spend a few hours surfing the net, but I just can't get motivated." Or, "I'd love to just sit in my recliner and watch TV all evening, but where's my motivation?" Or, "I'd love to spend dome time playing video games, if only I could get motivated."

It always seemed to me the only motivation that should be needed to write is that you would rather be writing than doing anything else. Of course, if you really would rathe ruse every spare minute you have for writing, rather than using it in other ways, you really don't need to look for motivation.

In my experience, "motivation" is a word used by those who find reasons not to write.

I'm sorry, I wasn't aiming at werencole, and for all I know werencole is a writer who almost never gets online, and who writes every spare minute. But I do find it extremely ironic when writers spend time on the internet complaining about not having the time to write. And I just have to shake my head in wonder when a writer talks about needing motivation to write.

You should write because you love to write. If there's something else you'd really rather do with your spare time, that's the thing you should be doing. You won't need any motivation for it.

Rereading the original question:

werencole said:

My inspiration to write is high, but the energy my lifestyle leaves me at the end of the day is gone, and with it any mental fortitude that gets my BIC as opposed to in my bed.
-W

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I find that our friend Were N'Cole - no doubt some exotic ?African lycanthrope - is asking about time & energy, rather than motivation.

In my experience - and summarising other posts- it works like this:

If the draining lifestyle is temporary (e.g. new job, sick, increased workload): relax and get other jobs out of the way, e.g. filing, DIY. If it's permanent, then find and exploit niches, and declutter if possible.

Niches - odd regular moments - may exist 1st thing in the morning, or - like me - at lunch. The trick is to be able to dive straight in. I work from outlines, which helps. I've read of pro writers always leaving off with an incomplete sentence, so that they've got a starting point for next time.

However, some de-cluttering - AKA life laundry - is inevitable if you really want to write. You can only do so much with your time.

If you want time to write you need to bite the bullet and, e.g., prioritise your social life, cut down on computer games, drop hobbies, exit extraneous social circles, step away from commitee roles, and avoid getting a hangover on days you intend to write.

Above all, you have to stop treating writing time as flexible slush time.

My famndamily irritated me yesterday. More information posted here.

I dealt with it by eating five pieces of pie (I made two pies and had to try them in addition to the chocolate) instead of my intended three.

I've paid for it with my indigestion. This morning saw bananas and sherbert.

But for my "down with writing" times, I just shelve everything and take a walk, watch a movie, cook something weird and see my niece. If that doesn't work, I read-a LOT. My eyes are worse than my grandfather's but I'm managed to keep from blowing up physically.

So if I can't be trusted because I'm not a chubby cook, can I be trusted as an author with bad eyes?