I started to work on the next round of manuscript revisions today. This is major, because I have been functionally unable to engage with manuscript revisions for at least a month. Half of that time, admittedly, was spent waiting for feedback from my agent — but the other half has been eaten completely by Covid-19. I could’ve been back at this at least two weeks ago, and I am mad about that in a way that feels extremely petty and small, all things considered.
I went into the lockdown with grand intentions. I was going to take walks every day. I downloaded the Couch to 5K app. I did approximately one set of leg stretches on my first day spent working from home. Obviously I have all but ground to a halt since then. This is not surprising to me — I know I find it hard to do things without external motivation, and there’s really none of that to be had at the minute — but it’s disappointing. For all the world is upside-down right now, there’s still an impulse to make the most of all this leftover time I suddenly have; I want to be exercising, writing, working, and instead I am sleeping to excess and struggling in a major way to extract myself from bed.
This is probably not an unfamiliar frustration. I don’t mean to claim possession of the lockdown suffering high ground, or anything.
There is value in pushing myself, to a certain extent. I do feel better when I can make myself, for instance, hack through ten unwieldy sit-ups before returning to my duvet nest for a while; and I do need to get my revisions moving sooner rather than later, so that future Waverly can access the bonus ‘out on submission’ level of publishing more quickly. I have been a depression ghoul for long enough to know that succumbing completely to inertia is not a particularly great solution to anything.
But equally, I’ve been an anxiety goblin for long enough to know that trying to power through despondency is… also not ideal. It is pretty normal, under these circumstances, to be a bit out-of-joint with reality. I’m not going to do my best work if I’m battling through abject despair without allowing myself even a little bit of leeway; I’m going to burn myself out, and that is (I assume, thanks mostly to video-game-based experience) no way to survive a plague.
So: yes, I’m frustrated. Yes, I’m angry that the world is not what it should be, and that I can’t just carry on the way I want to. But if anger really is an energy, then it’s not necessarily sustainable, or environmentally friendly. It’s a long haul. You can’t sprint your way through a marathon and expect to make it work.
All of which to say: if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to do a set of sit-ups and get back to reading a book.
W