For those of you familiar with my 1K a Day challenge for the year of 2015, I present to you a weekly series. Once a week I will endeavor to write a nice, short blog post with something that occurred that week that attempted (or possibly even succeeded in) tripping me up and causing a failure. This could be poor time management on my part, getting pulled over by a cop who was stung by a bunch of angry bees and he just wanted to beat someone, House of Cards Season 3 being released (this one worries me), or perhaps an invasion of ultra-intelligent mice intent on global cheese supremacy.

Regardless, I feel certain that every week, I’ll do something or something will happen that will needlessly complicate my 1K a Day Challenge, and the point of this series is to talk about the variety of ways in which routine can be broken, how to combat it, and how to weather a social life while still working a full-time job and keeping your hobby moving every single day.

_____

So for this first one, I am going to choose the phrase “But I’m too tired” as I said it or thought it on both Wednesday and Thursday the previous week. Wednesday I worked my day job for six hours, then did the airport roulette for five more, and by the time I finally got home and unpacked and ate something and started a load of laundry, all I wanted to do was lay down in my own bed for the first time in a week and pass out for 10+ hours. Instead, I got my phone out, transferred the writing I’d done via phone while on planes (about 400 words), and got to work on finishing my thousand words for that day.

Thursday was no picnic. Except there were ants. It was kind of like an uncomfortable picnic. Thursday I had to go back to work at my day job and work a full day, being exhausted and mentally drained from the previous day’s adventure. When I got home that evening I had the same thought. It would be so nice to just lay down and forget all about this stupid challenge.

But I didn’t do it. I turned on the computer and stared blankly at the stuff I’d written the day before. I had no idea where I was going. So I reread a couple pages and picked up the flow again, and about 90 minutes later I had my thousand words.

_____

The question is “How do you write when your body or your mind is so tired you can’t even think straight?” and the answer is that you just do it. Everybody has tired days. You keep working when you’re getting paid because you have to or you could lose your job. You keep exercising because you have to or you get fat and unhealthy (I’m both). You keep playing with your kids because you love them and would die for them. You keep cooking dinner because you have to eat. You keep doing laundry because you have to have clothes to wear.

You keep writing because you’ve made the commitment in your life. You said “This is important to me and I’m going to do it no matter what”. It’s hard. It’s damned hard, some days. But if you make the commitment and prioritize it over watching another episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, you’ll get it done.

Write even though you’re tired because it’s no longer optional. It may not be the best writing you’ve ever done, but it’ll do because it has to be done.