I’ve been having a lot of nightmares lately. Which is weird.

When I was a little girl, I used to get night terrors and I sleepwalked even into adulthood, but I haven’t had trouble with either again until lately. The dreams have been pretty vivid and run the gamut from those mundane and obviously drawn from things I’m worrying about in everyday life to the creepily fantastical and so-horrific you wake up shaking. The latter, at least, are providing good grist for the story-generating mill. Still, it’s disruptive. I’m tired today 😦

In other news, I had a recent ‘come to Jesus’ moment on my writing. I’m a pretty busy gal. I’ve got a day job that might as well be a full time job for the amount of time it requires. I also manage our calendar, including planning all trips and social events small and large. I run our household, doing 90% of the cleaning and errands and 100% of the cooking. And I’m trying to turn my writing into a career. Now, I realize there are plenty of folks who do ALL this plus have kids or even a full time job on top of it all. So I’m not complaining. I’m just saying. There’s always something to do. Something pressing. And of late I’ve been letting all those somethings take priority over my writing. Productivity has fallen sharply.

The last few days I’ve been trying a new experiment. Since writing is the thing in my life that has no immediate deadline, it’s what’s been getting short shrift. So, I’ve decided to do the writing first thing in the morning. For example, if I have a lecture to prepare and exams to grade for the next day and I do those things first…well, by the time they’re done at 3pm I’m tired and I push off my writing or make a desultory effort at it. BUT, if I write first and then, at 3pm, turn to the schoolwork. Well, no choice but to do that, is there? It’s due the following day, after all. And, boom, it all gets done.

This has been working out pretty well so far. Hopefully I can keep it up and thus increase my writing productivity (and my overall productivity).

So. That’s my week so far. Nightmares and lessons in productivity. Not related (I hope).