I have a confession to make. I am afraid of the dark. Not because of a gremlin or a boogeyman under my bed, but because I struggle with sleep. Sometimes I have trouble going to sleep. Sometimes it’s staying asleep. Sometimes it’s both. Whatever it is, it makes life very difficult.
It’s hard to hold conversations when you can’t remember what you were talking about and even worse when you say something and you know it’s not coming out the way it sounds. It’s hard to concentrate on anything for very long when you have only had about four hours of sleep. It’s hard to teach high school level Chemistry if you can’t keep your eyes open. And when you are in survival mode, you can just kiss your imagination goodbye.
The last time I posted on my blog I was so excited about the writer’s retreat last month. It really was so much fun getting to go away by myself (almost never happens) and to travel (also almost never happens). That weekend we had good food, great speakers, ghost hunters, a painting session, and a sex toy party (which, btw, was so much fun and yet…weird). Saturday night we even tasted all kinds of different alcoholic drinks in the name of research for our writing. <wink>
But, in the middle of all the fun I was struggling with lack of sleep and basically hit a wall going 80 miles an hour. And, I crashed and burned. I came away from there wanting to quit writing. I wanted to quit homeschooling. I wanted to crawl into bed and never get out. But two things held me up. 1) going to Nationals and 2) writing friends.
See, I bought my plane ticket in March. Five hundred dollars isn’t a small chunk of change for my family. I made the commitment to go back then and I’m sticking to it. And for good or for bad, I am not going to go with an “I want to quit” mentality. Besides, I want my kids to see me as a person who has a goal and works toward it, whatever comes along.
And also I wouldn’t be writing this blog today if it wasn’t for several writing buddies I’ve made along my journey. One is a woman I met in a class who has encouraged me to stay with it with almost daily emails. When I told her I was done, she told me she wasn’t going to let me quit. She also told me of her struggle with insomnia and how she overcame it with a major change in her diet. I have since changed some things in my diet as well.
And lastly, I wouldn’t be back in the ball game if it wasn’t for Lisa Miller (from a yahoo group I’m in) who started a 50x50 challenge on the loop. The challenge is to write 50 words a day for 50 days. At first I told myself that I didn’t even have 50 words to give to my writing. Then I told myself that since I didn’t start with everyone else, I was too far behind to participate. But not so. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday she sends out an encouraging email. This past week it felt as if one of them was directed straight at me and for whatever reason, I found some time and energy to write. For the last three days I have finally worked on my WIP. My work isn’t pretty and will probably be dumped eventually, but at this point, I’m just thrilled to have put anything on paper.
How about you? Do you have anyone who keeps you gives you support and keeps you going?
That's all for now....
~Michelle
