It’s been a rough past couple of weeks. Do you ever get stuck in a rut where you have a lot of creative projects you want to work on, but you have no energy to do them? That’s been me for awhile.
I think part of it is that I have a stressful job. I even had an anxiety-induced dream the other night where the woman who replaced me at my old job was pointing out all the errors in the magazine I help produce now while laughing at me. I blew up at her and stormed out of the room, then instantly regretted losing my cool. Then I woke up from that dream angry with myself for being so worried in the first place. (For the record, I've never met my replacement but I clearly have some issues!)
In the past two weeks I’ve gotten two rejection letters from literary journals for a short story that I think is one of the best things I’ve ever written. One of those rejections was on Valentine’s Day, right as I was about to leave for dinner with my husband. That wasn’t great timing and I wish I hadn’t looked at my e-mail.
I have a podcast I need to be working on and another idea for a short story. But lately I’ve felt too discouraged to even open a Word document to get ideas down on paper. This could also be part of the winter blues I usually get, so today I told myself I was going to quit feeling sorry for myself.
I saw a great quote from a podcaster I follow that said “You have to work harder on yourself than you do on your job.” I read it twice and let the words sink in.
This time last year I was absolutely miserable in a job I felt like I was failing at daily. I wasn’t sleeping. I cried a lot. I ate too much and leaned on alcohol more than I should have. After one night of letting my mind wander down the darkest path while my family slept, I knew I had to make a change. I sought out the help of a therapist and have been going to weekly appointments. Having a place to reaffirm my worth, work through painful childhood memories and vent about work stress has been a lifesaver. I got a new job opportunity that was more suited to my talents. I cut back the alcohol, started eating more mindfully and began writing daily goals and affirmations in a journal. I exercise at least 30 minutes a day five or six days a week. And I started sleeping again.
Today when I started wallowing in Misery City, I reminded myself of the above. People are truly excited about the podcast I’m putting together--it won't be perfect at first and that's okay. And Margo Dill has inspired me with her posts about self publishing. I have some great stories that I can put together in one anthology and produce myself. Once I launch my podcast, I can also launch my short story collection.
No, I’m not perfect and neither is my writing. But I haven’t done this much work on myself to quit now.
Have you ever let fear of perfection keep you from putting pen to paper? How do you break past that barrier?
Renee Roberson is an award-winning writer and magazine editor who also blogs at FinishedPages.com.
