Update

I'm not going to whine, I'm not going to make excuses. I'm going to understand what's wrong and deal with it. Unfortunately, what's wrong with my writing and my writing time is really beyond my control and just requires patience from me to get through it all.

I've had the luxury of working a pretty terrific dayjob that allows me thinking time for my writing, usually at the expense of speed getting through my never ending workflow. If I didn't get enough done before lunch, I'd make it up after lunch. If I didn't get enough done after lunch, I'd make up for it the next day. Don't misunderstand - I don't steal company time to write, it's just that I'm usually thinking about two different things at once anyway, so why can't one of them be something I love? :) Having my mind in two places was okay before, but not now. I'm entering the third trimester of my pregnancy, and I cannot play with my workflow anymore. I cannot chance handing my workload over to my co-workers without it being 100% up to date. Totally not fair. So with the super-focus on getting stuff done at work (and taking on -voluntarily- a scanning project that will help those gals while I'm out) means my lunch break writing time is being compromised. I have a hard time switching tracks in my brain from patent workings and data entry to the creative output I need for writing.

Also creating an obstacle is the combination of my two year old needing a later bedtime and my own need for an earlier bedtime, shrinking that precious time to a mere hour to an hour and a half, which needs to be divded between writing, household stuff, and oh I don't know, ME time? It took us a few days of fighting the 7 - 7:30 bedtime routine for the little girl, and she wouldn't actually go to sleep until 8 or after. We pushed that up, so our routine with her starts at 7:20/30 (playing, reading with her in her room, singing bedtime songs) and ends quite smoothly by 8pm. Sound asleep, she's freed me to do my own thing.

Which means finishing up the dinner cleanup, putting away whatever toys we never got her to do, dealing with the day's mail, starting a load of laundry, and then am I free to write. Or try, anyway. My bedtime has dropped to between 9 and 10pm, mostly because of the Nighttime Joys of pregnancy (leg cramps, bathroom needs), I'm only getting an hour and a half to two hours of sleep at a time. Between that 10pm and 6am, I'm up and out of bed at least 3 times every night.

So faced with all this, my creative energy is dwindling. My time available to stir up that energy is fading, right along with my desire to put out stories. It's the sleep, it's the strain on my body, it's the demands of keeping my day job going strong. Heck, even sitting at the computer is getting more difficult with the big baby belly in the way.

I'm dropping my weekly goals to one item from here on out, which will be geared toward completing projects, but focused more on paying any level of attention to the writing. Reading is included in that, especially if it's my own. Marking up manuscripts now for editing later might work. My monthly goals are going to change, and I don't think I'm going to make my submission goals for the year. And considering the baby is due the end of November (and will likely show up via c-section), my recovery and his well being are going to take precedence over the writing. Not to mention, my computer room is in the basement of my house and stairs after a c-section are quite limited, I won't even be at my computer all that much.

I knew this was coming, and it still makes me sad. I feared with my first pregnancy that I'd forget how to write, and while some things needed practice to get back into, my muse was still there. I just had to rework some of the technicalities of the writing. I can do it again. I just didn't want to give it up this soon. Comparing again with my last pregnancy, I wrote a little bit, but gave up very early on. This time, I wrote nearly every week right through week 26 (that's about 6.5 months). So really, I did better. I'm glad for that.

I'll just have to take it one little bit at a time from here on out.