Productivity Pressure

Just A Reminder To Breathe

"Do you think the quarantine forced you to reinvent yourself during the writing process?"

Someone tell me to be productive on my writing!

“I know, quarantine is hard and we deserve to not be at full productivity but I’ve been un-productive for more than months I wanna feel like a person.”

I have had a terrible time with productivity during quarantine and my work is office work that’s relatively bite-sized! I can’t imagine how hard it must be as an author, with the open-ended nature of writing and revising.

I’ve been on a long writing process during the quarantine period and came up with a couple of stuff’s I’m really proud of.

So I know you’re not supposed to say things like this, but I stopped writing couple years ago and it was one of the best things I’ve done for myself in a long time. I’m not advocating it for everyone, but it has been incredibly freeing.

Also, let me say that I don’t see this as a necessarily permanent thing. Maybe a pause? But my relationship with writing had become, dare I say, toxic and it needed to be redefined.

Really, the key wasn’t in stopping writing — I’ve been through periods like that before — but in stopping myself from expecting or pushing myself to write. Ending the persistent and often cruel voice that constantly harangued me, and yet was me.

It’s only now that I realized that I had reached the point where I rarely enjoyed free time because if I didn’t use it to write, it felt wasted, or I felt like a failure. So I was constantly frustrated. “I didn’t enjoy writing any more.” — It felt like something I owed someone. Ostensibly me, but a me that felt external, someone I no longer identified with.

That voice served a purpose at one point.

When I was starting to get serious, and reaching for greater accomplishments, it helped propel me. It helped me to finish things and work harder and keep at it but while I changed along the way, the voice never really did.

So I am somehow happier now, and more content. I feel more present in my own life, strangely. I’ve reclaimed a large part of my mind back and all that creativity and those ideas have been finding their way out in other places.

I expect that I will write again, but I hope that it’s because I am so taken by an idea that I have to do it, and will be happy doing it not because I “should” or because I’m measuring myself against someone else and their accomplishments.

And I just want to add that the main reason I put all of this out here is just to say that the conventional wisdom — that you have to write every day, that x, y, or z make you a writer, whatever — doesn’t necessarily work for everyone at all times.

Let’s see... so far.

I’ve done loads of writing, chatted to friends digitally, baked cakes, reorganised my bookshelves, forced my kids to play board games with me and set them books to read, played with the dogs also come back to Twitter or IG, which I thought I’d left forever.

“For me, writing has always been a solitary act, more so during this quarantine period. In order to foster a sense of connectedness with other fic authors.”

My writing process usually just involves me gasping for air at 3 A.M. grabbing my phone and typing "translucent hair power floating on grass or condiment pens." — So I don’t think I’m going to pump out the next great novel during this quarantine.

I recently started writing a thought every time I blacked out, this is by far one of the best thing I’ve done whole during quarantine!

“Yay! This sounds wonderful.”

I’ve been experimenting with similar things during quarantine and I like to think I’m finding a bit more peace with aspects of the writing life because of it. For one, I thoroughly enjoy my time playing video games and feel no guilt.

I just want to say :

“Don’t feel bad about your productivity in quarantine / shutdown times.”

• If you woke up and did some writing today hell yeah!
• If you woke up and put some socks on today hell yeah!
• If you woke up today hell yeah!

“Hell yeah to all of you surviving, that’s badass!”

"Do the most important thing first each day and you'll never have an unproductive day."

Look man, if I could make myself get shit done first thing in the morning I wouldn’t need advice on how to get shit done at all.

(Advice on having productive days : be productive.)

Cool. *thumbs up*

“Have you considered instead of not doing thingshaving a list of things and then doing all of them?”

This is hilarious.

Someday I will get advice for my executive function problems that isn’t essentially either “just do it” or “have you considered solving your problem by hiring someone to do it for you”

Haven’t yet, but someday. I’m sure.

Any day now.