It’s Thursday and I am having a bad time. Last year I wrote Motivationals every week, musings that helped keep me moving on my writing goals.
This year I have been struggling to keep up with everything and I blame it on a whole bunch of factors, some of them in my control, others not as much.
Mostly I think I’m just overtired and the thought of editing or even writing has my brain twisting itself in knots of inaction until I’m literally doing nothing worthwhile in my scant free time each day.
This is a Slump. We all go through them. Some people have seasonal slumps, where the winter is their bitter enemy. Others have self-doubt slumps, where nothing you create seems worth creating. Still others might be under so much pressure in work, or family life, or social situations that all their mental energy has been used up and they are in an overtaxed slump.
The point is, I haven’t figured out how to get out of my current slump. It is a constant companion. I am still producing, but at a much lower rate than I want and need to be. It is a mixture of not wanting to edit, of being discouraged to see how much work I need to still do, of work and home conditions shifting around and causing extra anxiety.
Words of encouragement are good, but they haven’t been good enough. Perhaps I’m coming down off of whatever super creative high I was riding last year and still need to decompress for a while. I don’t know. I don’t want to stop. I don’t think I will completely, but right now I’m just slumped over in my chair wondering where all that motivation drained away to, and how I can get it back.
Any ideas?
At the end of the day, I’m struggling really hard to remember to write the hell on.
Panning For Clouds 
Take it easy on yourself Jr. If your mind and body is telling you to take a break then you should do just that. Try to enjoy some of the simple things in life in the meantime.
I get what you’re saying, Rick. Have you ever had the experience where you were trying to think of a word or a person’s name, and while you were racking your brain you became more consciously aware of the person who was listening to you until you finally couldn’t think of what you were thinking about, but instead you were thinking of the person staring at you? Let the slump come and watch it go. Just don’t overthink it. It will pass.
Ha, yeah, Gene. I think we’ve all been there. Normally I just force the conversation to move along as soon as it becomes apparent that I’m not going to remember whatever it was, and then it’ll come back to me when I’m not actively thinking about it.
I guess part of me wants to fight through the slump because “I’m an Author” and I have to be able to do that. It’s not like I can just tell my day job I’m not gonna come in for a month while I’m feeling unproductive, and in my head I have to be able to meet the same expectations for my mildly profitable hobby if I’m going to turn it into my paying occupation. I know that’s ridiculous when I’m trying to do it for a full-time day job and a part-time author gig, but it’s there all the same.
I know it’ll pass, I just need it to pass faster! Thanks again for sticking around, Gene! Feedback is ever appreciated.