When I was getting started with 1K, my biggest nemesis – apart from my own track record of abandoning good habots and practice when the going got tough – was the weekend. I would get to the end of the week, and then would sleep in on Saturday, laze about, then write super late and sleep in more on Sunday. I would sometimes correct for this, but other times I would go into Monday on five to six hours sleep and feel wretched for the whole day. Covid made every single day like that last Sunday example, an endless stream of half-Sunday-half-Thursday ungodly hybrids that both feel like the end is taking too long and as if I;m having to dive right back into the start on zero batteries.
That’s why hitting target before 5pm – which was the exact time as I wrote this line – is such a big deal. It means an early night tonight, and a fun restful evening before then. It means I go into work recharged and ready to hit inbox zero as soon as possible. And most of all, it means I feel in control of my routine, because I like work finishing at 5pm. Doesn’t matter if we’re talking my main job, UpWork gigs or even 1K, I like to be done with productivity at 5pm so I can enjoy my evenings. It’s such an important thing for me that my mantra has the line “but finish up by five each night” as my goal to work towards. Just because I can write as late as I need to, doesn’t mean I should leave it that late. Regaining that discipline is going to be the key to coming out of this mess of a twelve months stronger than when I went in.
TWO is looking healthy. I added another 1,200 words today, which is a good indicator I am in a better place than I have been. When I just scrape target for weeks at a time, like I have been for the last few months, it shows I am clinging onto stability and even lucidity at times. When I start banking extra, even when as it was today I strugged to get started, that shows I am finding my swing, the flow of the work coming to me without needing to force it. The actual scenes themselves I think are going to need a lot of revision, as chapter boundaries don’t work as well for the writing style of the second half of the book, but on the whole I am feeling optimistic. WHT is having a few similar issues as I split big chapters up, but nothing I hope can’t be fixed by cutting and pasting.
This is what being in control feels like. I hope this is me from now, because I gotta say, you don’t realise how much you miss this feeling until you’ve spent a year without it. That’s out of my hands, but I can hope.
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