#i cannot stress enough the moment i give myself a self-imposed deadline for a fic it HAS to be met

[hella1975]

end of march is crazy for writing like i have a 1.5k essay im doing today and tomorrow, a 2k word essay im doing wednesday and a 1k word research proposal im doing friday. and in the remaining week of the month i am WILLINGLY going to finish taob (~10k OPTIMISTICALLY) and make a solid start on tams (~5k-10k depending on how well writing goes). like yes girl write around 20k words worth of MULTIPLE PROJECTS in a handful of days there is no way this can end badly at all

[goldkirk]

Hi, do you have any advice for creating in the current everything? I have some fics and other projects due soon and I can't find a way to make myself write or make anything.

This is a fantastic ask and I am a person with a lot of thoughts and opinions and YES I do have some advice, for two separate situations at the moment, I GOT YOU. 

Option A: You have some deadlines, but they’re self-imposed or can be shifted without a lot of pain.

Option B: You don’t have any deadlines for writing/art/etc. but want to do it anyway and feel stressed about the way you’re struggling to do any of it.

Option C: You have deadlines that are for school work or employers that are rigid and important and approaching somewhat rapidly and you are Becoming Stress Itself, and no, you still cannot seem to get the thing done, oh god.

For Options A and B:

Shift them. Shift all of them, overestimate how long it will take you to get them done, and do what you need to do or talk to whoever you need to talk to to shift them, and then if you DO get them done before that, fantastic! and if you keep struggling, you have less stress and more time to handle it. 

For Option C: 

Talk to the people who are imposing the deadlines, or your clients if you’re a freelancer, and be honest with them that you are having a very hard time and ask what can be done. The WORST that can happen is you walk away from that conversation/email/whatever with the exact same situation you walked into it, and anything else will be an improvement. I know it’s scary. Have the conversation anyway. Admit that you’re struggling, ask if deadlines can be shifted or lessened, and if there’s anything that’s disproportionately stressing you that you can unload, it might be a good time to back out of that commitment. HOWEVER, especially if these are all things that you really do WANT to get done, you CAN if you’re willing to push pretty darn hard in every moment of ability you have, which is going to drain some energy from other parts of your life right now. But it’s your life and your choices of balance and you’re allowed to portion your mental energy as YOU need, okay. You’re the only one who can make the calls for yourself, and you will be okay.

REGARDLESS:

Sit down, breathe a lot for a while, and talk to yourself about creativity right now. Tell yourself these things: the world is complicated and scary right now, life seems unstable, and I am okay but my brain has less capacity than normal because of these unusual circumstances outside of my control. I am allowed to be struggling, and many, many other people are going through the same thing as me right now. It is okay that I can’t find my writing, my art, my music, my movement right now. It’s enough that I’m waking up and making it through each day. 

THEN you live by this rule: I will have moments of feeling like I can reach my creativity, and I will throw myself into them and milk them when they hit, and those will feel good. But the rest of the time I will take each moment throughout my days right now that I can even slightly string a few words together or lay down a few lines for art or do one little bit of whatever I’m working on, and despite how flat and uninspired and painful it feels to force it, that is now a tiny bit more that IS DONE. IT’S PUT DOWN. IT’S SCRATCHED OFF THE LIST. Perfection is pointless. Done is good. ANYTHING is helpful. Two words are helpful. Creating an art file is helpful. Practicing one bar three times is helpful. Tiny, tiny little bits are easier to force out than overwhelming yourself just thinking about the Whole Thing you need to get done. 

Self care is critical. You have to make your body as nice a place to be as possible and give your brain and heart as much fuel and space as you can because they’re struggling with capacity and not up to the usual loads right now. Hydrate like mad. Eat regularly. Take moments whenever you can to put on a little lotion, to take five minutes and stare at plants outside, to sit in front of an open window and just listen, to peel a stack of potatoes, to knead dough, to color in a coloring page, to clean up your space and make your bed and braid your hair and feed a pet and change into a different shirt and make yourself a tea or coffee or whatever you like. Do those things all the time and your brain will start thanking you here and there with some better periods of flashes of creativity. 

Chop out as much time on social media, articles, news sites, the radio, TV, newspapers, etc. as possible. Literally quit looking at ALL of it for an entire day or three if possible. It makes a huge difference. Not even email headlines, don’t look at them. Let your brain get into a space where it can mostly forget anything is even happening, and turn your life into a bubble for a couple days. It helps a lot. You’re not doing anyone a disservice by blocking out the situation, you’re helping yourself function better for a bit and giving your poor subconscious (and conscious) a bit of a break from the constant influx of tiny bits of information and a lot of anxiety and Wondering and Worry. 

tl;dr - breathe, build in space for your brain, be gentle and compassionate with yourself, lighten your load if possible, and sieze every tiny moment you can. two words, one line, one chord, etc. is a million billion times more helpful than none, and they add up a lot at the end of a day or week. Progress is what matters, and at the very least you’ll have something to show that you’re really trying if someone doesn’t believe you. Don’t beat yourself up about dealing with this. You’re doing your very best and NO ONE is allowed to demand more from you than that. Breathe. Take care of yourself. You’re making it through each of these hard days, you’re doing great. <3