![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Sep. 14th, 2012 12:44 pmToday is supposed to be more about housework than it is. I do a bit and then my finger tells me to stop*. I think the moral of the story is to never fall on a finger and, if you do, to take it to the doctor no matter how much less it hurts than you think it should** and no matter how much it looks as if you've just done something minor to it. I have successfully done some cleaning and some tidying, but I shall still be very apologetic to everyone all weekend.
The good news is that I'm where I need to be with all the main projects and many of the minor. If I can do more on the minor projects today, I shall be pleased, but if I don't, I won't be in trouble for taking the weekend off. All my BiblioBuffet pieces for this month are in and already edited (for my editor is terribly efficient) and my supervisor and proofreaders currently have the various bits of my dissertation and novel and I have started thinking and note-taking for a new novel (and even written some, but it will fade when I really start writing - it's just drafting to get the characters sorted and the story worked out, at this stage) and written some short fiction (bad short fiction, but still, short fiction) and I have outlines for both papers I'm giving at both academic conferences (and one paper half-written) and panels for the two non-academic conferences I can actually get to, and an outline for the chapter I want to write for a rather interesting book but won't hear about until mid-October. I still have one set of information to get to a course provider and then I'm all done with that, too. And my co-writer has the whole of the Beast: there's only one small task with me right now. I have one novel to beta-read and one super-urgent big email task to deal with by tomorrow lunchtime.
I'm beginning to suspect that I'm one of these people who does a lot of things at once far more easily and at a better standard than she does 2-3 small tasks. This explains why things went so badly wrong for me when I was so ill. People around me thought they were helping by not letting me know about opportunities. If I had less to do, was their reasoning, I wouldn't overdo things and I would get better. I lost my self-confidence rather than getting better. I still can't do much physical labour, but I looked through the last paragraph and realised I'm entirely fully capable of doing a normal academic-novelist's workload. I have either three or four forthcoming publications, plus novels with publishers waiting for rejection, plus two non-fiction and two fiction books I'm working on in the background. I'm teaching. I'm resting when I need it (which is still an annoying amount) and I'm wondering how much of my depression is assuming I was a failure because I need a big workload. I'm easily bored and I fall into the trap of not believing in myself when I'm bored.
That's a nice reflective thought to end the old year on.
Now I must run my messages from yesterday. It's five degrees warmer today and not nearly as wet.
* It's possible to quarantine my finger most of the time while typing, but not while wiping things down or picking things up or trying to wield a broom in tricky corners.
** The people who were telling me how much broken bones hurt were obviously not people who handled significant amounts of pain every day. A broken bone is about the same as a medium to low pain day for me. Now you know and now I know. It's a lot more annoying than a medium pain day, however, for it stops me doing things.
The good news is that I'm where I need to be with all the main projects and many of the minor. If I can do more on the minor projects today, I shall be pleased, but if I don't, I won't be in trouble for taking the weekend off. All my BiblioBuffet pieces for this month are in and already edited (for my editor is terribly efficient) and my supervisor and proofreaders currently have the various bits of my dissertation and novel and I have started thinking and note-taking for a new novel (and even written some, but it will fade when I really start writing - it's just drafting to get the characters sorted and the story worked out, at this stage) and written some short fiction (bad short fiction, but still, short fiction) and I have outlines for both papers I'm giving at both academic conferences (and one paper half-written) and panels for the two non-academic conferences I can actually get to, and an outline for the chapter I want to write for a rather interesting book but won't hear about until mid-October. I still have one set of information to get to a course provider and then I'm all done with that, too. And my co-writer has the whole of the Beast: there's only one small task with me right now. I have one novel to beta-read and one super-urgent big email task to deal with by tomorrow lunchtime.
I'm beginning to suspect that I'm one of these people who does a lot of things at once far more easily and at a better standard than she does 2-3 small tasks. This explains why things went so badly wrong for me when I was so ill. People around me thought they were helping by not letting me know about opportunities. If I had less to do, was their reasoning, I wouldn't overdo things and I would get better. I lost my self-confidence rather than getting better. I still can't do much physical labour, but I looked through the last paragraph and realised I'm entirely fully capable of doing a normal academic-novelist's workload. I have either three or four forthcoming publications, plus novels with publishers waiting for rejection, plus two non-fiction and two fiction books I'm working on in the background. I'm teaching. I'm resting when I need it (which is still an annoying amount) and I'm wondering how much of my depression is assuming I was a failure because I need a big workload. I'm easily bored and I fall into the trap of not believing in myself when I'm bored.
That's a nice reflective thought to end the old year on.
Now I must run my messages from yesterday. It's five degrees warmer today and not nearly as wet.
* It's possible to quarantine my finger most of the time while typing, but not while wiping things down or picking things up or trying to wield a broom in tricky corners.
** The people who were telling me how much broken bones hurt were obviously not people who handled significant amounts of pain every day. A broken bone is about the same as a medium to low pain day for me. Now you know and now I know. It's a lot more annoying than a medium pain day, however, for it stops me doing things.