Notes on Giving Myself Permission to Do My Work

Now that my part-time full time endeavor of cabin in the woods caretaking has come to an end and the winter hibernation is just over the horizon, I'm neck-deep in rebuilding my writing practice, in training myself to work in the afternoons (in addition to my daily 0500-1000 blocks), and giving myself permission to treat it not as a hobby but as my job (I thought having actually been published would defuse this mental fuckery; hahaha joke's on you, writer-boy).

Two things I've found:

One, that the only way to actually get better at it and to get over my preconceived defeatist notions of my capacity or lack thereof to function in a focused, brain-centric manner is to actually do it.

Two, that while, in the process of doing the afternoon block of The Work, I more often than not feel as though I'm slamming my head against a wall – wouldn't it be nice to have a small pillow or egg container for a nanosecond or three? – the morning blocks are usually smoother because of the aforementioned two hours of head-slamming. Learning to treat the afternoons as further unclogging of the mental pipes for better flow in my more conscious hours; I am nothing if not a morning person.

OK, three:

By spreading my writing day across an actual day – as opposed to attempting to jam it into the confines of a morning so that I might spend my afternoons pretending to be someone I’m not – I'm more capable of defusing the self-loathing that would creep at around 1500, give or take. Shock of shocks, actually doing The Work when I want to do it and not tailoring my purpose and my need to the whims of others ameliorates the mindtricks and middle fingers that conspire to piss all over the day when my umbrella's in the shop.

There might be a better conclusion to this post but I haven’t found it so I’ll leave it at that. There also might be a better accompanying picture but I can’t find one and it’s a dog toy so there. The day’s run awaits.