Monday 20 May 2013

Writer's Stress

This wasn’t going to be a confession type blog but I have to confess that as I come, late, to write this week’s post, I am stressed. We have come back from a really lovely weekend away, visiting my film student son in Falmouth for his 19th birthday, and somehow we seem to have walked into a whole world of stress. I’m sorry, this post is not going to be filled with lively and varied ways of expressing things – I said I’m stressed, right? Here are some of the causes, profound and trivial:
  • ·         My husband, a deputy head, is very busy and has Ofsted coming. I probably need to say no more if you have any kind of acquaintance with a teacher. Last year he pretty much succumbed to a serious bout of work stress, so the symptoms we are seeing now are a horrible reminder of a place we don’t want to go back to.
  • ·         My son is in the middle of AS level exams. He is coping well but this and the above factor add up to a house in which I feel I had better not be stressed myself. Or if I must, I have to do it discreetly.
  • ·         My Dad is unwell for pretty much the first time in his life and is awaiting a consultant appointment. I certainly won’t be going to my parents complaining that I’m stressed.
  • ·         I want to enter my novel into a competition with a September deadline, but since I work full time and write in the mornings, evenings and weekends, I am starting to look at the number of busy evenings and weekends between now and then and wondering if I can possibly get it ready. There, at least now this unwriterly rant now merits a place in a writer’s blog.
  • ·         I have a talk to write. I should be writing it now but I am taking the time to tell you how stressed I am.
  • ·         This moan is going to sound like ‘my wallet is too heavy, I can’t lift it’ – but we are going on holiday next Saturday for a week. Holidays are of course nice things, they are good for stress, but we tend to forget how stressful it is clearing a way through normal life so that we can absent ourselves from it for a week. We were away this past weekend. Nothing has been done. The house needs cleaning, there is a huge pile of washing to do, I haven’t even unearthed my summer clothes and the tumble dryer has taken to blowing all the electricity in the house if you turn it on.
  • ·         I have a blog post to write. I looked at my stats after the weekend and was pleased yet alarmed to see how many views the site had had in a few days; now I am picturing a crowd of people turning away disappointed at the lack of new material and deciding not to look again.

Can I write while stressed? Well, we are about to find out as I turn my attention to that talk. The upside to a whirling mind is that it gets you up early in the mornings, so I have some extra time.


Well, having got that out of my system, I actually feel better. I hope that, blog-wise, normal service will be continued soon, though not next week, as I will be on holiday.  Do leave a comment, it will cheer me up!

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