Shake Your Routine Gently

It's Monday morning. I've just stumbled out of the room to brush my teeth, prepare coffee for my fiancé, feed the cats, eat breakfast, go on an archaeological dig doomed to find naught but shit, and sip at my green tea while embracing the zen of sunrise. Ready to tackle the rest of the day, I sit down at my desk to continue writing the journal entry for the 25th of Uros.

For the first hour, nothing happens. Words I write, I immediately delete. My own distracted thoughts derail my focus only momentarily, but it's long enough. My attention span isn't what I need it to be, and I can't force myself to concentrate like I usually can. This struggle is a normal occurrence in the morning, but today it's exaggerated to unruliness.

Any writer facing this struggle has a few options:

1. Throw your hands up in defeat and go binge Netflix or play video games for the rest of the day (not what I would recommend if it's purely a distraction issue and not accompanied by lethargy or other weightier feelings that may be pointing to other problems in need of addressing);

2. Keep forcing it and possibly feel like you're beating your head against a wall;

3. Step away, go for a 5-minute walk, maybe stand looking out a window contemplating life's greatest mysteries and how we are but atoms in the great expanse of the universe before returning and trying again;

4. Change up your work location, either to someplace new or a place you frequent, even if it's just your living room or the local library;

5. Change the medium by which you write, switching to paper and pen if you're accustomed to typing or vice versa, using a pen instead of pencil, writing in cursive instead of print;

6. And more...

I specify writers, but I've encountered this same issue when composing music and drawing, and #'s 2, 4, and 5 have been my go-to for all three creative endeavors. Usually # 2. I can be quite stubborn...I'm working on it...

In any case! I changed my location from my office to the living room, and when that failed me, I thought back to how I overcame creative blocks in the past and swapped out my computer for paper. Super fast type-y fingers are only good if you're actually typing after all, and I wasn't doing any of that. Here is the result of both Monday's and Tuesday's efforts:

10 pages filled front and back with an 11th mostly written, and I'm not even close to finished, but I knew it was going to be lengthy. Once it's written, I can then put my fast type-y fingers to use and input it into Scrivener for further editing.

It's remarkably easy when writing or drawing or composing at the computer to look back over what you've done, select it, and hit Delete because it's garbage. And sure, you can do the same by crumpling up the page and throwing it in the trash or marking sections out when working by hand, like in my picture above with the crossed out paragraph, but it's still there, and nuggets from that paragraph may spark inspiration for future ideas or thoughts. Or maybe not. But I wouldn't know unless a semblance of it remained.

At least this way, even if the whole journal is garbage, it's garbage I can work with, and by completing it instead of starting over again and again, I'm improving my overall writing skills

Other Notable Accomplishments

• Had to rest Monday-Thursday from working out because I injured my upper back trying to do an unassisted pull-up before I was ready; Friday was my first day back, and it felt nice stretching my muscles again
  

• Navigated a couple of difficult conversations, one of which took a majority of Wednesday and Friday, since it was via text. The other was in-person with a group of friends my fiancé and I meet weekly, and that was far more difficult because it's easier to bottle up how I'm feeling than tell the people involved face-to-face. Both were good conversations, and I felt much better afterward. Almost wrote this blog post about them and the impact playing TTRPGs can have on practicing skills that you're not good at, such as in-person communication, or developing empathy for others, but if I do write one, I want it more thought-out than a post written in a day.

This Week's Obligatory Cat Pic: Salad

(It's impressive because she never climbs the cat tree, let alone chill in the little cubby hole.)