Sleep and word count.
Word count and sleep.
That’s what the focus of this Fess-Up post is all about.
Last Friday, I was down in Kentucky. I came back on Sunday, so needless to say that wasn’t the most productive of weekends. I don’t want to get too deep into exact word counts, suffice it to say that I got off track from the 1700 word-per-day schedule.
If you’re like me, once that happens, you’ll try and make it up later on…with mixed success.
After the weekend, the real world asserted itself and I tried to keep up. That meant less time for other stuff. Eventually – and I say this like a lot of time went by, but it was more like two days – I ended up sacrificing sleep to get a greater percentage of ALL THE THINGS done.
Not a good life choice.
Come Wednesday morning, I was telling myself that I only had to make it through two more days and then I could rest.
Well, I’d heard that before, and wasn’t buying it.
Thursday morning, I woke up, checked the heater (it had to be reset), made the coffee (which was a life-saver…seriously), grabbed some grub and headed up to write.
About 30 minutes of struggle ensued, then my brain made a noise that sounded something like “Murgle-fritz” – only imagine that it was sung by a wildly drunk Daft Punk, playing on poorly tuned instruments.
I ended the day with 93 words – total.
Later on that day, I got some stuff down writing longhand, but I don’t really count it. There was a great deal of cross-outs and questionable scribbling. I mean my hand writing isn’t the best, but when even I’ve got to look at it twice in order to figure out what’s on the page…well that’s a clear signal to stop.
I got home from the day job, nuked some leftovers and played a game. Total unpluggage.
This morning, I got up after a SOLID eight hours of sleep, took my time with the day (I’ve got the day off today, so there was a piece of, usually, constant pressure that was missing). When I sat down to write, I doubled what I normally get down for the same amount of time.
Take care of yourself folks. You may think that you’re skipping out on a bill when you play fast and loose with things like sleep and self-care, but you’re not. That shit comes due – with interest.
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