by Janis Patterson
This is going to be a short post,
because both The Husband and I are feeling real puny. He threw his back out
(out? practically into the next county!) shoveling dirt while playing with the
dinosaurs at the Arlington Archosaur Site (run under the aegis of the Perot
Museum) and is hurting terribly. I caught some… something that makes my head
feel stuffed with wet rags, my throat scoured with sandpaper and a persistent
low grade fever that will not go away.
So what does this have to do with
writing? Him – nothing. Me – potentially a lot. I’ve been ferociously struggling
against deadlines for over a year while juggling the daily trials of existence –
cooking, laundry, birthdays, getting the car worked on, all the things that we
all do all day every day. It’s called life.
On the other hand, I’m a bear when
it comes to deadlines. I’ve only missed one in my entire life, and that was
because of a catastrophic car accident a couple of decades ago. Having been
raised in advertising, I was taught early that deadlines are sacrosanct.
No one ever bothered to impress on
me that I should not take on so many of these immutable deadlines so close
together.
Okay, so I’ll spare the suspense. I
made my latest deadline – and promptly keeled over into a coughing, sneezing,
fever-ridden mess. It’s not like I didn’t have adequate warnings – The Husband
(who has his own weirdnesses) kept telling me, “Slow down, honey – you always
get sick when you get overtired…”
I didn’t listen. But I made my
deadline!
If there is a cautionary note to my
sad little tale, it’s that we have to take care of ourselves. No deadline is
worth your health. So – first of all, don’t take on so many projects that you
can’t complete them in a reasonable time with reasonable effort. Secondly, live
your life! Enjoy your family. If I may be trite, smell the roses. There are
other things than the computer – I know it’s hard to step away when all those
voices are clamoring in your head, but if your head is stuff with drippy wet
rags they’re going to drown anyway.
