It’s a little after six in the morning here and it’s just me and the cat and the one crow I’ve heard call before sunrise alive in the apartment building. I love the early quiet of the morning and how it allows me time to reflect and get grounded for the day before the rest of the world starts running in circles. It’s also the best time for me to write. I’m not writing this morning, though. Well, unless you count this blog. I haven’t written for a week. Even when I have a book in editing that’s unusual for me.
I’d like to say 2020 left me raw, but I was raw going into 2020. I was raw from 2019 and now sitting here in 2021 I alternate between my skin feeling like stone and parchment paper. It took a little longer for me to feel the effects of not going out (I’m still not going anywhere if I can avoid it. I live in a big anti-masker area and my anxiety doesn’t deal well with it in general.) and the effects of what my friends and I have started to call COVID economy. I go to bed thinking about the future and wake up thinking about the future -usually full of dread. I know it’s not sexy or whatever, but it’s where I am. I’ve always been honest about mental health, because too many times it gets swept under the rug. I always figure, if I let one person know that they’re not alone in their struggles that’s enough for me.
My friends have been incredibly awesome during all of this. Some days I feel like we take turns between freaking out and being the voice of reason. I love them to death and would be lost without them.
I’ve received a lot of advice about writing and words of encouragement that go every which way. For me, not writing isn’t a choice. When everyone says to take a break or try something else, I’ve done that before. Writing suits me – it’s solo for the most part. It enables me to put ideas into words that I couldn’t otherwise. So, all their well meaning advice about doing anything else goes out the window, because I can’t give up. Burnout is part of the process sometimes and anxiety/CPTSD makes it worse when it does happen.
And throughout my lifetime, I know the one thing that combats anxiety – keeping busy and sometimes switching things up. We’re going into storm season here which means maybe I am crazy for what I’m going to do. Though, all the best people are bit crazy, if you ask me.
As many of you know Camp NaNo is next month. It’s the baby sibling of November’s NaNoWriMo. I usually avoid writing camps, because I write so much normally. I always feel like maybe they weren’t meant for me. With my current lack of motivation (not inspiration. I know what the next book in my series is about – I know who and what and why. Hell, I have a short from a dead character with something to say that needs to go into editing soon.) I just lack motivation – or the ability to turn off dread of the great WHAT-IF? So, I’m going to participate in Camp NaNo. I’ll probably (hopefully) start writing on the book I’m planning to use it for ahead of time, but since I’m aiming for somewhere in the neighborhood of 75-90k words, I think that’s fair. Camp Nano is all about finishing up projects anyway.
I think going into Nano will give me my motivation back and give me a reason to blog more. Switching things up just enough to get me moving again and I need that. I need something to focus on and I think it’s time for me to do Camp again.
If you haven’t heard my latest novel launched yesterday: Book 6 of Love by Glitter Bomb: To Save a Sidhe
![To Save a Sidhe by [Maggie Hemlock]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51j6T5S7Y1L.jpg)
Maggie Hemlock Books 