Over the past 8 weeks I have been busy. Busy earning lots of money.
Week 1: 60 hours
Week 2: 62 hours
Week 3: 64 hours
Week 4: 41 hours
Week 5: 39 hours
Week 6: 53 hours
Week 7: 49 hours
Week 8: 53 hours
Those are simply the hours that I worked that were paid for, I am not including time spent studying, networking, researching, reading books, and going to social events. In short, I have been burning the proverbial candle at both ends. Hence my writing has fallen by the wayside. My writing hasn’t fallen by the wayside because it’s not as important as my paid work, but because when I work so many hours I become so mentally exhausted that writing is painfully slow. When I am refreshed I write about 750-1000 words per hour easily, when I am tired only about 125-250 words per hour. When I feel fresh, I always want to write, in a way it’s the most important thing in the world to me. These past few weeks have been comforting in that my savings has grown significantly, but stressful because if I don’t write my mood drops significantly.
My work-life balance right now is completely out of kilter. When I work this many hours I seldom get enough sleep. Then simple things like cooking and cleaning turn into unbearably complex chores because my mental reserves are depleted. At the end of week 3 for example I was stumped as to how to boil an egg… yet I used to teach people how to cook risottos, quiches, and savoury muffins. In my tiredness it seemed as though all my cooking expertise had simply been forgotten.
On top of all this I have been getting angry, periods of rage connected to the disappearance of quality me time in my life. I have been depriving myself of my own enjoyment of life by working so many hours. I have decided that I need to raise my rates, since my work is so much in demand I can charge more for it and hopefully I will work less hours for the same amount of money. Giving me more time to clean my apartment, cook yummy food, and finish my writing projects. In fact, further to this, because I have saved so much money recently, I think it’s safe for me to drop jobs that take up 10-20 hours of my time each week next year. This will give me time to focus on my writing and a podcast I have been wanting to start.
That all said, I have been writing these past few weeks just not anything connected to my stories on this website. You might have noticed a new sci-fi series called “Shattered Space”? It’s a fanfic I started writing between breaks at work. I have no lofty plans for it. I write it for my own entertainment as a low investment fiction. I might just post that up to keep the content going here. Although I do want to start updating some of the stories like the Monk and Thorns.
Right now… I am taking my first break all year because it was forced on me: sickness. My 46 week run of not getting sick has been broken at last. Sadly, sick brain isn’t conducive to writing either. However, its nice to finally stay home all day and just do nothing. Just nothing. Amazing.
Alright, boring writer’s journal post finish, let’s see if I can post some new content up this weekend?
Sophisticated Nonsense 