When Going Eighty Feels Like Standing Still

[lilithsaintcrow]

A day or so of kinda-sorta-slowing-down (but not really, because there were a million things to do) is not enough time for the brain to recover. Which means I’m frantically running in circles, yapping, wasting even more energy flailing and feeling sorry for myself.

This just in: I give myself such very good advice…but sometimes I do not follow it. For example, if my writing partner started doing this I’d say “Slow down. The engine inside your head is running at full speed, it’s going to take it time to slow down after that monster revision and then the proofing. You’ll strip some gears or blow a gasket if you don’t relax a little. Take a deep breath and take it easy.”

Very Good Advice. Except, well, I can’t. Stuff is due and if it isn’t turned in on time–yeah, you know where this ends. It ends with me running in circles barking and sobbing about how the sun is going to go out and it’s all my fault, waaah.

I know it’s not rational. But there comes a point after finishing a novel, especially if one don’t give oneself an adequate cushion of time for the snapback, where the flywheel inside one’s head is whirring madly and sparking. A massive long-term mental and emotional effort, which is basically what a novel is to your brain and feelings, has a momentum all its own. And when you finish that first draft, all that effort and momentum is still going. It’s like being on the freeway for a while and then taking the offramp and having that weird sensation when you slow down. Your body has become accustomed to eighty miles an hour (or, erm, the speed limit) and going fifty feels like twenty, and going thirty-five feels like crawling. You can run right into a wall if you’re not careful, because your body’s been tricked into thinking eighty miles an hour is the equivalent to standing still.

So my brain and emotions are still going at top speed from the novel, and the offramp is a pretty short one. Having to slam on the brakes and execute a turn at high speed–or even worse, zoom through the intersection (hoping no cars hit me) and back onto the freeway without a chance to stop for petrol or a meal or a loo–isn’t pretty or fun.

Moments like this are why I laugh so long and loud when someone tells me, “Gee it must be nice to sit around and just write all day.” Right before I have to hyperventilate and suppress the urge to punch whoever-it-is in their well-meaning-but-utterly-clueless face.

This is NOT easy. It has, like every job, some days when you’d just rather be at the beach or even napping in an air-conditioned bunker. Some days it’s even harder because the discipline can’t come from a boss eyeing you or peer pressure. It has to come from that habit one has built up of writing every day, the ass-in-chair-hands-on-keyboard.

And sometimes even that discipline isn’t enough and you have to dig down deep for sheer bloody-mindedness. Which is a quality I am told I have in abundant supply, and I am hoping it will be enough today…

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