When Life Attacks
Okay, this was supposed to be a good week. Not a fantastic week, but a good one. Friday was early release; I'd have a short teaching week. My plan was to finish up my art forms, get them to my editor, and start adding to MOU again.
Well.
Life had other plans.
Wednesday, Joan blogged about staying motivated. Last weekend, I was motivated! Even with the horrific set of essays I'd graded (and they were BAD!), I was good.
Well.
Monday started.
I handed back essays. Kids flipped out. Parents stressed out. Administrators came looking for me. Any thoughts of personal writing went out the window.
Tuesday? Parent conferences. Scared, rather whiny students. My own Monster #2 had issues at school.
Wednesday? More parent conferences. More scared students.
Thursday? You got it . . . parent conferences. My meter box blew up. Georgia Power shut off all power until it was repaired. DH was three hours away, and there was no way it was getting fixed. We also had PTO -- the first of the year -- and the meeting ran until after 9:00. Still without power, we drove thirty miles to the nearest motel and laid out $75 bucks for a place to sleep and shower.
Friday. The clock in the hotel was fast, so I ended up waking everyone up at four A.M. instead of five. We had our matriculation ceremony at school, I had to give a test, blah, blah, blah. We did get out early, but Monster #2 had a doctor's appointment and after that I had to follow my mother to another city to return my sister's car. DH had gone to Florida, with the intention of returning to fix said power outage. He ran into delays and by the time he returned . . . well, we shelled out another $75 for a hotel room.
Right this moment, he's outside trying to fix the power issue so we can have it restored. I'm typing this on the laptop with the battery steadily ticking away.
Needless to say, my art forms have not been submitted to my editor. I have not added any pages to MOU. Oh, heck, I haven't even thought about my own personal writing this week.
Am I complaining about my week? No. I'm feeling blessed that I smoothed out the parent issues. I'm feeling blessed that I have the money to fix the power issue and that I had the money to shell out for those two hotel nights. I'm blessed in many ways.
But sometimes, we simply have to accept the fact that no matter how motivated we are as writers, life is going to get in the way. Things happen. We don't make our goals. We don't finish a novel when we'd planned.
But it's okay.
That's life. Writing should be a part of our lives, not the totality of it. We deal, we move on, we write another day.
What are your coping skills for those times when life attacks?
Well.
Life had other plans.
Wednesday, Joan blogged about staying motivated. Last weekend, I was motivated! Even with the horrific set of essays I'd graded (and they were BAD!), I was good.
Well.
Monday started.
I handed back essays. Kids flipped out. Parents stressed out. Administrators came looking for me. Any thoughts of personal writing went out the window.
Tuesday? Parent conferences. Scared, rather whiny students. My own Monster #2 had issues at school.
Wednesday? More parent conferences. More scared students.
Thursday? You got it . . . parent conferences. My meter box blew up. Georgia Power shut off all power until it was repaired. DH was three hours away, and there was no way it was getting fixed. We also had PTO -- the first of the year -- and the meeting ran until after 9:00. Still without power, we drove thirty miles to the nearest motel and laid out $75 bucks for a place to sleep and shower.
Friday. The clock in the hotel was fast, so I ended up waking everyone up at four A.M. instead of five. We had our matriculation ceremony at school, I had to give a test, blah, blah, blah. We did get out early, but Monster #2 had a doctor's appointment and after that I had to follow my mother to another city to return my sister's car. DH had gone to Florida, with the intention of returning to fix said power outage. He ran into delays and by the time he returned . . . well, we shelled out another $75 for a hotel room.
Right this moment, he's outside trying to fix the power issue so we can have it restored. I'm typing this on the laptop with the battery steadily ticking away.
Needless to say, my art forms have not been submitted to my editor. I have not added any pages to MOU. Oh, heck, I haven't even thought about my own personal writing this week.
Am I complaining about my week? No. I'm feeling blessed that I smoothed out the parent issues. I'm feeling blessed that I have the money to fix the power issue and that I had the money to shell out for those two hotel nights. I'm blessed in many ways.
But sometimes, we simply have to accept the fact that no matter how motivated we are as writers, life is going to get in the way. Things happen. We don't make our goals. We don't finish a novel when we'd planned.
But it's okay.
That's life. Writing should be a part of our lives, not the totality of it. We deal, we move on, we write another day.
What are your coping skills for those times when life attacks?
posted by Linda Winfree at 6:20 AM
3Comments:
Jack Daniels.
Oh, we're being serious, right? Ignore that earlier comment.
Um...me time is my coping strategy. A long hot bath, a 3-mi. run, listening to my favorite music and chilling. Most days I let little stresses roll off my back, but there are days (or weeks, like yours - sorry to hear of all that, by the way) where it piles on until I feel ready to burst. That's when I need time to myself to de-stress.
Booze.......LOL
Oops I see me and Liz had the same answer, sorta.
ROFL, Amie. Great minds think alike. ;)
Post a Comment
<< Home