March 14th was a pretty big day as far as this writing 1,000 words every day thing goes.
I'm not sure exactly what it is, but I think it's the Daylight Saving Time thing that has been kicking my ass so hard this week. Sunday was okay, because I could sleep late. But, by sleeping late, I got too much sleep, and couldn't get to sleep Sunday night. It was past 2:00 AM when I last looked at the time that night, and I had to get the kids up for school at 6:30 AM. So, I was lucky if I got four uninterrupted hours of sleep that night.
Monday is when Rish and I usually get together to podcast. We usually go really late, but we didn't do too much this week. We split up at midnight, but, even though I spent the whole day with my mouth wide open in what seemed like one endless yawn that was actually a series of slightly shorter yawns separated by only tiny intervals of a closed mouth, I couldn't sleep immediately upon getting home. Instead, I was up till 2:00 AM again.
So, Tuesday the 14th, I was utterly beat. I was in a stupor the entire day at work. It was a miracle that I didn't upload video of two rhinoceroses having intercourse in place of the video of double murder-suicide story...or wait, did I? I wouldn't even be able to tell you if I had. I was completely beat. On the way home, I barely made it without drifting off at the wheel. I gave my five-year-old a bath before bed, and laid my head against the wall as I sat on the toiled lid waiting for him to be willing to get out, possibly sleeping for several minutes.
Then, I put him to bed, and went to write my words for the day. I sat there staring at the screen, and typed almost nothing. After thirty minutes, I'd typed two paragraphs, perhaps 150 words, perhaps less than that. I couldn't get it going. I didn't know what to do, because I couldn't go to bed if I didn't do my words, but without going to bed, I wasn't going to be able to do my words.
Finally, I went to Facebook, and typed up this status update:
Luckily for me, fellow writer, and friend of the show, Matthew Sanborn Smith happened to be online and standing by to save my life. He replied:
I looked at his reply and thought, okay, why not? (I live a why not life these days). I replied with:
I went into the kitchen, and filled up a water bottle with sixteen ounces of water and chugged it as fast as I could. And when I was done...I did feel a little more awake. I went and sat down at the computer again, and started pecking away. I finally got into the flow, and less than 45 minutes later, I replied again with:
It's funny how harrowing the experience felt. But I got to bed well before 11:00 PM, and got a lot of sleep. My wife even took a turn waking the kids up for school at 6:30 this morning, so I got more sleep than ever.
Today was a much easier day. Sleep really makes a difference. I sat down to write this evening, and really got into the flow. My total was 1,576. My second highest total in all the 43 days I've been at this. and only five words less than my record from March 8th. Today was triumphant compared to yesterday, although yesterday, actually finishing it yesterday, might be more triumphant.
Rish wrote a comment on the blog a few days ago when I posted about struggling through the writing even though I had a bad headache:
That comment was in my mind the whole time I was struggling through the sleepiness, running on two cups of water. It helped me to push through again.
Now if only I could do some real push-ups, and get myself into shape. Maybe I wouldn't always be so damned tired.
P.S. - This blog post is another 716 words. Maybe I should count them too.
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