When writing, I sometimes manage to get only a page done. Or a few paragraphs. I try to focus on the fact that I am writing at all is what counts and that it will add up over time. But I feel like what I write isn't enough. Likely being too hard on myself as usual. How can I overcome this? I don't want the joy to get sucked out of writing.
Sometimes my great achievement for the day is to write a good sentence or just restructure a sentence. Sometimes not even do anything physical, but a victory in the subjective realm--for example definitively realize how the next scene (or paragraph, for that matter) will be structured*.
I'm not trying to establish a speed record, but to write the best thing I currently can, without throwing everything I have into doing this. Which sounds totally against the ethics of Eye of the Tiger, but I've kind of outgrown running up and down stairs in a hoodie and boxing sides of beef. If, say 70% of personal energy are needed to invest daily into making life work the way it should in all its facets, and another 20% go into writing, it seems self-evident to me that the 10% surplus of energy resources best go into passive, sybaritic enjoyment of life, into accumulating more energy as it were, not using it up.
For example, reasonably healthy young adults, still burning through their biological inheritance, do not realize that weekends and holidays were invented to help you accumulate energy, not use it up. At some point, when the biological inheritance has been indeed squandered, suddenly the true function of the time off work becomes apparent
Personal energy is like money--when all is well it may seem super efficient to invest everything to the last penny into this and that (or indeed it may seem super obvious to splurge on fancy foods and drinks), but when entropy strikes in one form or another--it's suddenly best if you do indeed have some free money on your hands right here right now, and all of it is not locked into various investments and has not been used up on "a good time after work" or "the fancy shoes I totally deserved". It's the same with personal energy--if you use it up a 100% every day, for hard work or hard play or both, when sudden entropy strikes you'll wish you hadn't done that.
A popular trap is to convince oneself "I'll put myself through relentless hell now, but then later, once I'm sitting pretty on the fruits of my toil, I'll be able to enjoy life". At least
I view this as a trap. To me that's not life, that's serving a self-imposed sentence for no good reason beyond the screaming goblins in one's head. Nothing wrong with toiling for a better life, but much is wrong with not leaving aside at least 5% of waking life for doing nothing.
Another trap, specific to writers and other artists, is to convince oneself there's no need to invest 70% or 50% or however much into making sure life runs the way it should, that these resources can and should be diverted into writing alone, and life can take care of itself. Then suddenly the marriage is in ruins, health is shot, the house is leaking everywhere, and the only way to save the ego seems to declare this was the plan all along because art demands sacrifice and I shall now become an alcoholic and drop dead because art.
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*And now we understand G.R.R. Martin's writing speed--definitely a kindred spirit of this poster