A Writer's Notebook, Day Six-Hundred-And-Eighty-Eight

I decided to make tonight a lighter evening and try to be in bed a bit earlier as well, since I am going to have a full day tomorrow, and don't want to be overly tired for it.  As such I did not write all the poems I usually would, though I am aware that it is silly to be saying that when I still wrote eleven poems today, and also worked on the story I have going this week.  Five of those poems, of course, made up for yesterday's undone work, but I also realize that I need to get a better balance going, and that allowing myself a bit of flexibility is, as I said yesterday, an important part of being sympathetic to myself.  I am afraid to loosen up about my schedule for many reasons.  I know a large part is fear that I might stop writing again, but I am not stopping, I just wrote a bit less today, and I am not certain what that means for my output tomorrow, but I know I will write.  Second, I think it is a way to stave off some of the feelings of failure I have related to my publishing difficulties.  I know I have no control over that, so keeping myself in this insane production schedule is a way of showing myself that I am doing it.  But that is false, I know.  The amount I write and the quality are not connected in that way.  I know there is more to it, that it is a part of deeper threads, perfectionism, and that much of it really is connected to that fear of failing that comes up in so many areas.  I want to keep writing at the rate I have been, but that is not always realistic, and being able to accept that is important, is a necessary act of compassion towards myself, and I know I must need it if I felt the need to write this much in order justify writing only eleven instead of twenty poems today.

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