The truth is out.
I’m slightly embarrassed to admit this but I’m drowning in a humungous sea of junk. Well, it’s not really junk but rather piles of stuff consisting of clothes, books, magazines, clipboards, notebooks, scraps of paper and anything else I’m not quite sure where to put.
Am I talking about my basement? My spare room? If only.
No, I’m talking about my office. The space that’s supposed to be set aside for the sole purpose of being my work area, my special refuge meant to nurture my writing life. Well, that was the intended purpose anyway. These days it’s anything but the haven it was meant to be. The craziness my life has become in the past few months has taken its toll and the ensuing lack of time has dumped its messy butt in tangible form right where I can’t get away from it. And it’s driving me nuts.
Surprisingly, the rest of my house is in tolerable condition, but since I spend the lion’s share of my time in this office, everything seems to have migrated over here where I can’t even pretend it doesn’t exist. And since I’ve been beyond busy lately, I haven’t had time to sort through it or clean it up. So here I sit amidst a plethora of stuff I’d like to zap into Outer Space with a carefree Bewitched-like twitch of my nose.
My current dilemma is a bit of a surprise because the truth is I’m anything but a neat freak. But over the years I’ve gradually come to realize that I need a certain amount of order around me and if I don’t have it my productivity takes a serious nosedive. Thus the distinct lack of writing-related activity of late.
I should have realized what the problem was ages ago, but I haven’t even had the time to think much less do anything about it. All I knew was that I was having a heck of a time motivating myself to write. I guess I can be proud of the fact that I’ve done any writing at all but its been agonizingly slow and nowhere near as much as I’d like.
Granted other things have interfered as well, not the least of which was that we recently moved my MIL closer so that we could help her more. Though worth it, the mind-boggling amount of work that move entailed was staggering and exhausting. And now the other part of taking care of her is making itself felt.
We spent most of Sunday night in the ER. My MIL suffered an angina attack that gave us quite a scare but thankfully wasn’t serious enough to require a hospital stay. They sent her home in the wee hours of the morning and I then proceeded to spend the next few days taking her to various tests and doctor appointments as a follow up.
Through all of this I discovered one thing, I definitely don’t bounce back from staying up all night like I did twenty years ago and I had the major lack of energy to prove it. Once I stopped moving, I totally crashed. And as I sat in my office too tired to do anything but think, I wondered if maybe there was more involved with my lack of writing than just how busy I’ve been. I finally stopped and really focused on the mess my office had become and I suddenly realized how bogged down the surrounding chaos made me feel. I literally felt like the walls were closing in on me, like the stuff in here was going to crash around my ears and bury me alive. Yikes!
Could this overwhelmed-sensation be contributing to how unmotivated I’ve been feeling?
You betcha. And it’s so not acceptable. If for no other reason than because I simply don’t have the time for it. I have things to do—a book to finish and submit to my editor, the requested sequel for The Trouble with Curses to start plotting, and so on. And that’s just the writing stuff.
I quickly realized I have a choice. I can keep trying to ignore the mess and continue on like this, or I can take the time to sort through the clutter so I can breathe in here again. I think the answer is pretty obvious. If I want to get writing, which I do, then I have to dive into it. And I think that’s exactly what I’m going to do this weekend.
How about you? Have you ever found yourself in a similar dilemma? Does clutter get to you after a while? As I’ve discovered, it definitely gets to me. =)
~~*~~
Anara
Romance that’s sexy with a touch of sass
The Trouble with Curses – Available Now!
www.AnaraBella.com
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