Jenn: It’s happening to me too, Miranda!
What a timely post, Miranda. I was going to comment on yours, but I’ll save time and combine what I would comment to you, and what I was about to post myself. I am clueless about blogs and blog etiquitte, so I hope this isn’t bad manners.
I’m also on schedule and cranking like crazy with my book. I’ve just finished Chapter 3, and have written the Foreword (ROUGH), and developed and started listing sidebar/interest box topics for each chapter. I’ve signed the contract, gotten the three students into a good flow, and I anticipate turning in half the book by the end of spring break!
But at what price?
I got up at my usual 4:45 AM, made tea, and started writing. Usually I would be done by the time my daughter wakes up, and we would have a nice breakfast and morning together, then she’d go to daycare and I’d go to school to spend the day in classes or prepping for classes. Not so today. This chapter was LONG and HIGHLY TECHNICAL, and my daughter got up very early. She wanted to watch TV. Okay, I usually let her watch a video while I shower, but I was running to work today, so no need for a shower. She watched one video. Then another. Then she came over to hold my hand and physically pull me from my chair. I realized it was nearly time to go, we were both in our pajamas, I hadn’t packed either of us a lunch, and my bag wasn’t packed, either. And the worst of it was that I’d spent exactly NO time with the poor dear.
So then at school, I couldn’t manage to stifle the urge to keep working on the chapter. I now have 1 1/2 hours left before picking up my daughter. Today I was suppose to write/figure out two long lectures, grade all the hydrogeology labs so the students can have their lab manuals back to prep for the next lab, grade hydro homeworks, map out the logistics of TWO major field trips, one for Eating & the Environment, one for Hydrogeology, write a supplementary lecture for Natural Disasters because the 300-student field trip I planned for Tuesday was thwarted by a foot of snow (it’s kind of hard to go looking at rock gardens and curb cuts under such conditions), write the strategic plan for the program I direct (due yesterday), write an exam for class, and sketch out what I’ll do next week. How many of these tasks have I accomplished? NONE of them.
So like you, I am right on schedule with the book. And like you, the rest of my life has momentarily spun out of control. I guess that’s what this blog is for; to keep us delivering the goods we publicly said we’d deliver, but also to remind us that it is *NOT* okay to let our kids watch 45.5 hours of videos a day, and to come to work an unwashed mess in the name of meeting deadlines. I am thrilled with my progress, but ashamed of my behavior today. I also scowled at anyone who came into my office to distract me, including my Chairman, our secretary (not supposed to be called that these days), and every student. This is my JOB – to serve students. These were technically my OFFICE HOURS.
I don’t think I’ve experienced simultaneous feelings of “I AM AWESOME!” and “I AM THE BIGGEST F-ING LOSER ALIVE” at the same time and so intensely as I do right now.
Off to salvage the last 1 hour of my precious day.
Studio Mothers: Life & Art 
Bummer…I can certainly say I know how you feel! It really stinks to feel great about what you’re doing and horribly remorseful at the same time–chapter written, but it’s 7:00 p.m. and you haven’t even started dinner.
This is where I personally think I’d benefit from more structure and scheduling. As we’ve talked about elsewhere in this blog, managing expectations is the first step. Once Christa decided that she wasn’t going to expect anything other than mommy duties during the day, she stopped feeling so torn. I guess you and I need to decide WHEN our creative windows are, and make the very most of them, but then stop when the clock dictates, as difficult as that is.
That said, for me, the three days of babysitting time I have each week are hard to plan. I need to be available for client work, but aside from larger, ongoing projects, a lot of what I do involves processing documents the same day they come in. On any given morning, I might think I only have three hours of client work and can spend four hours working on the book, but as the day progresses, the creative window shrinks as new client requests appear in my in-box. So hard to count on anything. But maybe I just need to do as Christa does: tell myself that those hours are dedicated to client work, and then if I happen to clear my in-box, even if it’s only for half an hour, I can use that time for the book.
All well and good, but yes, the gear-shifting is difficult. Better than nothing…not that any of this rambling makes me feel less grumpy about working today!
And just wondering, what happened to that mound of work you DIDN’T do yesterday??
It’s still there. And it’s piling up like crazy. I have four hours of daycare today, a 100 minute class in which I have to talk 200 minutes worth, due to a snow day on Monday, and then somehow cram everything else from yesterday into the remaining essentially two hours. This weekend I have two dinner engagements and a party to get ready for.
AND I just took a project involving an overhaul of end-of-chapter material for my competitor’s book. Ethical dilemma. It was technically BEFORE I signed the contract for my own book, and it’s due quickly. It will force me to look at my own work in a new way, so it’s like your work, where your work for clients fuels your own creativity. But it’s due mid-February and is a HUGE amount of work. And my ex had been taking our daughter for 2 days a week, when I would CRANK on work, but he’s been mobilized and I can no longer count on him for uninterrupted time I can work/write (Aside: This morning Hollis requested and is playing with the zoo you bought her, so no TV, yay!). As you’ve said, the money is good.
You and I are very much alike in that this is how we THRIVE, though, isn’t it? This is how we feel alive and… I don’t know… JUSTIFIED in living? Needed? Wanted? Important? We’re not happy unless we have a to-do list that’s 4,000 items long. We bring this on ourselves to a certain extent because (I think) we love it. We don’t HAVE to do half of the things we feel that we “MUST” do, but we do them. It would be a lot easier to scale everything back, but it wouldn’t be nearly as fulfilling. Apologies if I’m not speaking for/to you, I just think this is something that we do share. PLEASE correct me if I’m wrong.
When you wrote your post, my way of connecting with you was to – instead of giving you concrete ideas on how you might lighten your workload – smile and tell you my sleeves are rolled up high and I’m in the thick of it, too. And we *ARE* having fun, aren’t we? At the end of the day? If it weren’t fun, we wouldn’t be doing it. It’s ALL fun. We are lucky and blessed to have great families (some smaller than others) and work that what we have always dreamed of doing.
We just live, and do, and it somehow all works out in the end. Your resolve to know when to let things go and know when it’s “good enough” is an important element of operating at 120% most of the time. You’re a GREAT writer, and you SHOULD be writing. It is an important contribution to make to the world and an important legacy to leave.
Maybe this is something for BOTH of us to remember when you feel like getting grumpy? We could be sitting in a cubicle doing accounting for a living, 40 hours a day, punching a time clock. Not that there is anything wrong with doing that, it’s just probably not something that you or I are meant to be doing. We have great jobs, are more or less our own bosses, and have creative projects that interface nicely with our work.
Okay, 8 minutes late for daycare, no lunches packed, Hollis in P.J., and my bag isn’t packed again…
LOL…maybe we both need babysitters–for US, not for the kids.
I know what you mean about the thrill of moving at warp speed–and I do believe that the more you do, the more you can do. It’s like Superwoman adrenaline kicks in, and suddenly you can fling cars across a parking lot and clean an entire house in 45 minutes while preparing lasagna at the same time.
BUT, as I get older, my interest in staying in that uber-plane is diminishing. As much as I’m not very good at recreation, I actually LIKE discovering that I have nothing urgent to attend to and can indulge in reading a novel for three hours on a Saturday afternoon. (OK, this has happened to me approximately twice in my adult life, but still, it did have its appeal!)
I’m sure your point about stress-lust is valid, or I wouldn’t be a) having my fifth child while b) doing a mini house renovation in preparation for c) putting our house back on the market and trying to d) sell the house in a two-month period in a terrible market before I give birth all while e) working as usual and f) trying to finish my book and oh yeah g) taking care of the other four kids, husband, house, Newf, etc.
There are moments of thrill, but I also suspect that you may get more out of your job than I do. I mean, you’re a freaking PROFESSOR, and your entire department–nay, your whole school loves you and recognizes your contributions (hence the “favorite teacher schoolwide” awards and various professional carrots that are continuously dangled before you. Plus, you run marathons, which clearly shows that you have an ability to ignore pain well beyond what I can ever aspire to.
And then there’s the fact that you’re doing everything you do while being a single mother of a toddler, which pretty much makes everything I complain about look like too many cherries on a sundae.
Or maybe you just have a secret clone with matching great hair and that’s how you are able to continue performing at your level??
Jenn you get up at 4:45? Holy crap! then again, I’m usually nursing the youngest at 4am. And today, for the first time ever, I contemplated getting up to write.
I should have. It would have made my day brighter. Normally, all I have time for is about 10 minutes of writing before the kids or the day job interrupt. But if you can do the really early morning stuff… maybe I can too (normally, I am a late at night person. But most days now, I am too drained to do that).
Eek. If you’re still nursing, in my book, all bets are off. I nursed Hollis until she was 15 or 16 months old, and during that time, in retrospect, I did WAY too much and didn’t just relax, rest, and enjoy the experience of a tiny little baby. I was training for a marathon, teaching an overload of classes, going through a painful divorce, taking care of the house and three dogs by myself, administering the environmental studies program at the college where I work, and was estranged from my mom and sis (the two people I would have otherwise relied on most heavily).
In retrospect, I wish that I had just SLOWED DOWN. Hollis and I are very bonded to each other, and in many respects I don’t have any regrets where she is concerned, but I look at pictures of her as a tiny little infant, and I don’t even remember that period of time.
I can’t IMAGINE trying to write or be creative during that time when you’re up every 2 – 3 hours! How on EARTH do you do it??
I go to bed at the same time as Hollis: 7:30 – 8:00 PM. THAT’s the ONLY way I can get up at 4:45. And those are the ONLY two hours of freedom I have. But sleep is such a precious commodity, and I’d say that if you can get back to sleep at the early morning nursing, WHY NOT? It’s such a finite period of time that you have a little one, take care of yourself and your baby and anything else that you manage to do is gravy.