I’m so ready for this week to be over. I mean, it’s not been a bad week, but it has been a week, and I’m exhausted. To top it off, I really haven’t gotten to write much and I spent the last two days off from work, but I was so tired that I slept probably 90% of the time.

I honestly look at some writers out there that are writing huge amounts of words with a full-time job and I have no idea how they do it. Like where do they find the energy? It was easy when I was doing the writing thing full-time and didn’t have to worry about going to work, but now that I’m working a full-time gig, finding time to write isn’t the issue. It’s finding time to write when I’m not falling asleep on my keyboard.

The result of this exhaustion is that I feel really guilty. Like, I should be finding time to write NO MATTER WHAT and that if I don’t, it’s obviously some failing of mine and not that I’m putting too much on myself. I’ve always been extremely goal oriented, which is why I find myself so attracted to planners and creative journaling. Goals are meant to be achieved and it kind of drives me crazy when I miss one.

Two years ago, I deleted my old blog and moved over to Squarespace. I liked it. I still use Squarespace for my art website. So it’s not that it wasn’t a good experience. But I realized right a couple weeks after I moved, that I liked being able to change my author website on a whim, while my art website didn’t need that much maintenance. I suppose you can do that in Squarespace, too, but it’s not as easy as WordPress and I missed the familiar WordPress interface. So I moved my website back to my own hosting and installed WordPress again.

The reason I brought that up is that back then when I first started writing again after that two-year break, I was aware that I had burned out because I put too much on myself. Too many lofty goals, too little time. At one point, I exploded mentally and checked out. So I changed everything I’d done, from my focus to my website. But then I realized I liked my website the way it was and it wasn’t really necessary to completely change everything. I just had to put the broken pieces back together. That took some time too, and sometimes, I still find broken links in places. But really, I’m happy with where I’m at and where I’m going.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t tend to push myself a little too hard sometimes. My FT job is exhausting. It’s the nature of it. I’m constantly running all night long. Which means it’s okay that I’m tired a lot. I just need to learn to be kind to myself and allow myself some time to recuperate without guilt.

That’s a lot harder than it looks.

So it’s time for me to go work on Her Last Kill. Still in the homestretch on revisions… just a few more chapters to go, so hopefully I’ll be done before the end of the month. Thankfully, Editor Lady is awesome and works with my crazy-miss-all-the-deadlines stuff. She’s a keeper.