♦Welcome to another edition of the Open Book Blog Hop!♦
Topic #183
Does writing energize or exhaust you?
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Image by Gabor Fejes from Pixabay. (c)
I’ve been functionally exhausted for as long as I can remember. Going to school I was wiped out every day except weekends when I was able to sleep in. Since I had no serious responsibilities, I got a lot of rest, but I still remember being so tired. That continued through college and now through adulthood.
Taking some vitamins has helped, but affording them is tough at times. I have to make choices between having food, paying the bills, and funding the writing. So when I have enough, I have a regimen of vitamins. One other thing: doing IVF completely burned me out on taking another pill or medication ever again. Going back to taking them has been a battle. I just muddle through with excuses.
Honestly, though, staying up to edit or write until after 11 in the evening makes it very tough the next day. With the addition of my toddler, financial choices aren’t the only things dogging my excitement for writing or life in general. Since having her, I find my greatest joy is to be had in spending time with her, or resting so I can spend more time with her. She was a long time in coming and it was a battle to get to motherhood. So when I say excitement for life, I’m saying that I am so tired I would just love to spend my time napping life away.
There was a time when writing did energize me. I used to get so damned excited—to the point of giddiness. Do you remember being a child and going to a fun park or something like that, and the butterflies in your stomach over it? It was like that. Writing was tops.
Image by Ria Sopala from Pixabay. (c)
So what happened? I’ve written about this before, but I’ll just say again: publishing takes its toll on a writer.
I miss being so energized about a work, and I thought that getting beyond my publishing hurdles would make me feel better about the whole thing again, yet it did not. Every book that I put out seems to dredge up the worry and the hard work of the process is tiring. Seriously, it is not glamorous behind the scenes. I hope that I can impart this to aspiring writers before they dig in and find out the hard way. Writing, being an author, is hard work. Is there a stronger word to describe it? How about gruelling?
Writing books is a job. There are parts of it that are fantastic, and they always will be, but there are other parts that suck. They’re just frustrating. There’s no getting around them either, you have to do them. Regardless of the tedium, we persevere out of the love of our art. I wonder if that, despite the exhaustion, that it’s still energizing on some level, enough to keep us coming back for another hit. All I know is, I’m raring to go on the next book, despite reservations.
For right now, I’m just really tired. Juggling a regular job with a toddler is a lot, and I also write books.
Let’s hop on over to see how the other authors are feeling. Click on one of the links below to continue the hop…
Goodness knows how you write while looking after a toddler. I didn’t have the time or the inclination to write until the age of 55 after my two sons had left home!
I just hold my breath, hold on tight, and go! LOL I’m blessed to have a really good baby. She’s a lot of work regardless, but I am able to get her to be at a reasonable time for now. So I work the hour or hour and a half between her bed time and mine. Not much room, because I have to get other things done then too, like lunches and clothes settled for the next day, but I get something done. Sometimes it is just a blog post. Sometimes it takes weeks to get my blog set for a month out. I pretty much just manage my discipline as best as I can. Hold my breath, hold tight, and go.
Parenting is the hardest and most rewarding job I’ve ever done. Self-publishing really didn’t exist when they were young, but I doubt I could have taken advantage of it while raising them simply because we were so busy.
Technology has really made it a lot easier, as far as the business end of things. I made sure that before I had her that my series was in order, ready to be edited, and released, and I wrote one other book during that time, too. So I will keep producing work during these early stages of her life. After this year’s release, it will be a couple for the next, and then I have to start from scratch on something new. that should get her to the age of four. Then I will have to assess. I’m sure we will be pretty busy! Looking forward to it, because she’s the best thing I ever ‘wrote.’
I watch my daughter trying to keep up with her little ones and wonder how I did it!
My mom said the same thing when my brother had his almost 20 years ago. She raised two while working full time.
The thing about the vitamins! I so get that, as that’s a constant battle in our household. Sometimes we do half doses to stretch it out.
Wow, everything you wrote about was so real to me. I’m glad you are doing what you can, even though it is tiring. You are a great example for your daughter.
Yeah, I was taking them like every other day, some three times a week. Have to stretch them. They still do a lot of good for me. and maybe it is better to take less doses, in my case. I really don’t know.
<3 Thank you. It matters a lot to me what she sees.