Camy's Writing Diary

I’m still alive, I just haven’t blogged in over two weeks because I got hit with a combination of sickness (several things after another) and busyness (some marketing commitments I had made). After my last blog post, I got laid low by a headache that lasted a couple days. It wasn’t quite as bad as a migraine but it was still too painful for me to work. I started feeling better on the following Tuesday, but I was a bit stressed by some Facebook marketing commitments I had to do that week, and of course my IBS acted up because of the stress. So I decided to take that week off from writing, at least until the marketing stuff was over, and instead do some writing-related work such as setting up blog posts and writing my newsletters for the next two months. It took me a lot longer than I had expected to get all that marketing stuff done, but I’m glad I wasn’t writing because the IBS was distracting me during the day. I know some writers who write with stuff like fibromyalgia and oth

I’m still in the process of trying to set myself up for success. Recently I’ve been blogging about eating my “frogs” first, and my experiment in putting some of those “frogs” off until later in the day didn’t work at all. For my Japanese study (one of the “frogs”), I lost motivation to do it later in the day since I was too tired, and although I haven’t mentioned it lately, I have to confess that I’ve completely stopped doing my daily exercise (my other “frog”). The exercise doesn’t always happen even when I do it first thing because if my IBS is acting up, walking only makes the pain worse. So if I’m having a bad IBS flare-up, I usually will forego my exercise. But since my iBS calmed down from its last flare-up, I’ve been feeling well enough to go walking, except I haven’t. While I went back to doing my Japanese study first thing after I wake up, I never got around to doing the same for my exercise. Partly it was because at the time, I was still doing my walking later in the afte

I spent most of the weekend reading and watching Netflix, which makes me think my creative well might have been a little dry. But then Monday rolled around and I still didn’t quite feel like working. I should have pushed through the laziness and lack of motivation. After all, if I were still working in biotech, I’d still have to go to work regardless of if I felt like it or not. But since I’m not working in biotech, I took the path of least resistance and took Monday off, too. I’d like to call it something cool like a “mental health day,” since I did feel mentally tired and I spent most of the day reading and recharging, but let’s call a spade a spade. I admit I played hookey from work, just because I felt lazy. I realize no one is perfect and so I shouldn’t expect to be perfect, either. But I do feel kind of guilty since I’m self-employed, which means I need more self-discipline. I’m not entirely sure why I felt so lazy yesterday (this entire weekend, actually—I didn’t do any

I’m feeling pretty frustrated right now because of my health issues. I woke up with a sinus headache and it’s only getting worse as the day goes on, but I want to get work done today. It’s driving me nuts that except for this nagging headache, otherwise I feel pretty good—my IBS has calmed down and I have a lot of energy. I’m still going to try to work through this. I did my Japanese study this morning, so that’s out of the way, and now I have the rest of the day clear to get work done. I’m still working on Snowflake step 8 (scene spreadsheet) and blocking for book 4 in my Regency series. *** I got a little bit of work done, then I took a break for lunch. However, maybe it’s the heat in California right now, or maybe it’s the lingering headache, but I feel even more tired now than I did this morning. However, I will still try to get a little bit more done today. Part of the reason I’m pushing myself is the public accountability of this blog, because I don’t want to have to po

For some reason I had several technology-related issues today. While I was in the middle of doing my Japanese studying, I mistakenly got a reminder to get some blog posts done, because my calendar reset its reminders, even though I had turned the reminder off for that item. I spent a few panicked minutes trying to figure out what I had to do, and then I mistakenly (my mistake) worked a couple hours to schedule some blog posts that didn’t need to be done today, but which could have been put off to this weekend. When I finally figured out that the reminder had not been for the blog posts I had worked on, I felt rather stupid. Then I had to hurry and do some edits on the Hawaii novella because my editor had sent the edited manuscript to a mistyped email address, and she only realized it this morning and resent it. So I spent some time doing the edits to get it to my publisher ASAP. Now that all that’s done, I feel kind of tired! I think it’s because I had TWO moments of panic to get s

Yesterday ended up being very busy, but for non-writing reasons. I had a bunch of important house things to do, and it was late in the afternoon by the time I was done with them. I still hadn’t done my Japanese yet, either, so I decided to skip the writing yesterday in favor of doing my Japanese and then getting to bed early. I got a good night’s sleep, and got my Japanese done early in the day. I also had a scheduled coffee meeting with another writer friend, but that was only for a couple hours, and now I’m ready to start work. I actually feel pretty energetic, despite the fact I got a lot done this morning before starting my writing. The good sleep helped, I think, and also the fact that I got that non-writing business out of the way yesterday, so I don’t have to worry about it anymore. I think I’m the type of personality where it significantly lowers my stress levels and helps me to focus better if I get things done and off my To Do list rather than having little things left fo

I feel quite a bit better today, even though yesterday I had bad IBS symptoms. As part of my clearing the decks routine, I did my Japanese study first today, and got a lot done. I did spend a little more time on it than I normally would, but I had expected that since I did a lot of new flashcards yesterday, and so I was anticipating doing a bunch of reviews today. It shouldn’t take so long in future, I think. I’m glad it got done for today. I think my studies are progressing quite well because I do a little bit every day. I’m a bit anxious since I had a terrible time focusing last week. I really want to get progress done on this book, and so the stress of not getting much done last week and the stress of wanting to get more done is probably not making it easy for me to concentrate. And that’s making my IBS flare up, too! I think I’ll change things up a little and put on a different soundtrack to listen to. *** I actually did get quite a bit of writing done today. I was a bit

For some reason I haven’t been able to sleep well for the past two nights, and so during the day I was sluggish and tired. I tried doing some work, but each time it was really hard to concentrate, so for the past two days I only did 30-60 minutes of work each day before calling it quits. I don’t usually have sleeping problems, but it’s been very hot at night here in California, plus I still have intermittent IBS issues, so I might have just been too uncomfortable to sleep. For both days, I did my Japanese study before starting work, and I wondered if that was contributing to my fatigue. But it’s hard for me to say since I woke up feeing tired already. Also I’m reluctant to put off my Japanese study since I’m afraid I won’t do it at all if I don’t do it first thing. However, today during my Bible reading time, the passage I read made me decide to try again to do my writing work before my Japanese and see how things go. While I consider my Japanese learning to be important, I think t