I have big dreams.
That’s never been a secret around here.
And making those dreams into a reality takes work. And it’s work I’m excited to get done, even if it’s big and scary, like announcing my debut novel, which comes out in 77 days, btw.
My days and weeks are busy. I get up early. I work until midnight, and most of it has nothing to do with being an author. It’s cooking, it’s cleaning. It’s taking care of kiddos, and during weeks like last week, it’s a whole hell of a lot of taking care of myself.
If a week was ever gonna derail me from accomplishing my goals, it was last week.
I’ve been battling a virus that is mostly an annoying cold, but has really done a number on my appetite. (Read, for a few days I had none.) I slept in everyday. I came home from work early one night and laid on the sofa. I missed emails. There were days that I didn’t write. My to-do lists sat untouched.
I was frustrated. Guilt weighed me down as more and more stuff piled up.
As I’m emerging from the worst of the virus, I’m completely overwhelmed with the volume of things I need to get done over the next few days–stuff I probably won’t get done this week either, because it’s Felix’s birthday on Tuesday, and mom stuff always comes first.
But here’s the thing.
I’m OK with it.
Do I guilt myself? Of course I do.
Do I let it stop me from doing what I can?
Absolutely not.
Sure, I only got a fraction of what I wanted to accomplish done last week, but what I did do was important. Taking care of yourself is important, even if that means sleeping all days and drinking all of the kombucha and reading The Allure of Julian Lefray
Inventorying what I did helps but the overwhelm of what I didn’t into prespectived: I finished writing a prequel to The Other Lane (more on that later). I bought ISBNs, because that’s the responsible author thing to do. I posted to Instagram TWICE. All despite feeling like shit.
Badassery achieved.
Giving myself credit for what I did already makes the backlog feel more manageable.
And tomorrow, I’m baking cupcakes to celebrate Felix and not apologizing for only writing 16 words.
PS, you should totally follow me on Instagram. I’ve been posting a lot of pretty desk photos, but also some teasers from The Other Lane. There are knitting pictures too.
