Day 402: Walk for stress relief

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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 stuff done today. I did finish my Japanese study, but I didn’t do as much as I could have, since my brain was feeling short-circuited.

And of course the stress caused my IBS to flare up. I swear, I can’t get a break!

I think I’ll go for a walk (assuming my IBS doesn’t get worse and make me return home). That might help me relax and get into a writing mindset.

***

I waited about 30 minutes before I went walking, because my IBS was bothering me, but once it calmed down I went walking and it did a great job relaxing my stress levels!

I got right to work, but only got an hour and 40 minutes of work done before I started feeling tired. I did a lot of writing-related business today, which might be why—that kind of stuff seems to sap my energy even more than writing itself. Overall, I did 5.5 hours of writing work or writing-related business, so I’m satisfied.

I also got to a good stopping point in my writing work—I finished blocking the scene I’ve spent a couple days working on, which ended up being more complicated than I had anticipated.

Outlining: time spent: 0

Blocking: time spent: 1 hour, 40 minutes

Editing: Time spent: 0

Writing: Time spent: 0

Writing: Total number of words: n/a

Writing: Overall writing speed: n/a

Time spent doing other writing-related business: 3 hours, 51 minutes

My takeaway for today: The walk really helped calm my stress levels so I could get work done after a stressful morning.

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