There's not enough time in the day. I don't have any time. Time goes by so fast.
These are all sayings that most of us say everyday, but I'd like to offer a new one: I don't have any brain time left.
What does that mean?
Well, I have to say that I'm not as busy as I might like to think I am. Yes, I have the usual dishes, laundry, three kids to feed and clean up after. I work three days a week, and now my boys have started playing football, which is four days a week. Even though I'm busy, there is still time to sit down at the computer and do a bit of editing. There's time to take a notebook with me to practice and jot a few notes while I try to decipher which kid is mine. I could sneak in a half hour here or there to write something new.
The thing is, by the time I get to these moments, my brain is done. I can't think anymore. I can't decide where the proper place to put a comma is. I miss spelling mistakes, and character development gets the shaft. Thus my new saying: I don't have any brain time left.
Am I crazy or does anyone else feel this way? Do you try to push through or give up for the day?
10 comments:
I definitely feel the same way. It usually isn't about the time. It's about the fact that I'm emotionally drained.
LW: Glad to see I'm not alone. After a long day, writing is almost the last thing I want to do.
PS: I've really enjoyed your posts this week.
My brain gives up easily. Unfortunately I sometimes let the other home engineering items go to the back burner so I can do the writing and editing stuff. So certain days recieve different focuses.
Amber: Maybe one day we'll have a super day where our house is spotless and our book is perfect. It's hard to keep the balance.
Oh yes! By the time I can sit down and write, most often I am fried! I find that in t hose times my creative can really be expressed though, so I write and not edit at all (or even worry about it.)
Jennifer: That's a good idea, just to push through the brain fatigue. I do think it's a good idea when writing new stuff, but when I'm editing I have a hard time.
Patti - I wrote a really long response to this last week and it never showed up! I think the hotel internet ate it!
I completely get this idea! This past week while laying at the beach, I totally understood it for the first time.
All this time in the past eight months when I haven't been able to get good writing done - writer's block or overwhelmed schedules or even "vacations", my brain is still working overtime struggling with the book in between everything else. But honestly, the day to day necessities crowded the book stuff out. My brain was just TIRED!!
Sometimes you have to just work through it, because that's the only option. One can't just take off to the beach and lay in the sun and hope for everything else that's jumbling up the story to leak out. Although that would be nice! :)
But just in case, I have ocean waves on my ipod so when I need to break from brain-fatigue, I can plug in and tune out. Maybe that will help. :)
Heidi: I agree, I think you just need to work through it, but then know when to take a break. Last night I read two chapters and it was getting late so instead of pushing through I shut the computer off and went and watched TV with my kids.
I'll have to download some of that music.
Wonderful post, Patti!
I do this all the time, reach my limit and then fade to black. Too tired to be witty or "ON" and definitely no prepared to process one more thing.
I get this. Happens to me all the time.
Holly: I've been fading to black way to often lately. The trick is stopping before I make all my edits worse.
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