I am not one to make excuses when I’m not productive. I am remarkable at abstaining from any activity that would challenge or stretch me. It would not be totally incorrect to call me lazy.
Oddly enough, this week, I found that I had a great desire to work. For five days straight writing is all I wanted to do. And not just journaling. I wanted to sit my butt in a chair and get real work done. I reordered ten chapters of my novel in progress, revised several sections, and wrote a new chapter. I got a lot done.
Under normal circumstances I would be proud of myself, of my recent stint with discipline. However, it doesn’t feel OK to do so. Not this week. It feels like, in the midst of all that productivity, I might have been hiding.
While I’ve been writing, in a number of cities around the U.S. protestors are challenging American’s comfort. Families are mourning. And while world changers are fighting for accountability in high places, I am making up stories. I am escaping.
I’m writing this post mostly to check in with myself, as I’m not sure if it’s OK to do this: to work, to create, to focus on anything other than the world and all of the many troubles that are yet so close. I’m not looking for anyone else to accept my guilt nor to tamper it. I am writing this post because I don’t know how to transform it. I am writing this because I don’t know if I have the right to.
Keep Writing. It'll All Work Out. 
I don’t know. Sometimes I feel like writing is a ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ kinda thing. Whenever I spend the entire day working on my manuscript, I finish the day thinking I’ve wasted it, because what am I doing writing fake stories that no one might want to read?
Maybe that’s part and parcel of what we do?
Anyway, thanks for sharing this truly relatable piece, and congrats on your writing spurt!
LikeLiked by 1 person