Deadlines

Currently reading:

• Beware the Woman by Megan Abbott

Books finished this week: 1

(And the last book for fantasy lit, too 🙌)

★★★☆☆

• Where this book came from: Impulse purchase at Richmond International Airport

• Why this book: I needed trash.

• Thoughts: Honestly, it was the perfect delayed-flight, distract-me-from-my-misery airport read. I’m a sucker for anything set in the UK, especially mysteries, and even after I (finally) got home, I found myself compelled to read more. If you want a book you can breeze through on vacation, I highly recommend!

Library updates:

I’ve been thinking a lot about anxiety and life and happiness—very small things, you know—over the last couple weeks, so I wanted to continue building on some of the ideas I wrote about last missive. A lot of my stress and anxiety over the years has come from deadlines, from having to finish homework and projects for school to working on edits and emails for work. I can admit here and now that I’ve never pulled an all-nighter to finish something, simply because I think my brain would implode if things got to that point.

In college, if I was still working on an essay even the day before it was due, I would probably be having heart palpitations. What if the printer wasn’t working the day of? What if some kind of emergency or another project came up and interrupted my workflow? And at my first real job, I would get home from a day at the office and immediately hop back on my computer to continue editing, working mornings, nights, and weekends to make sure I didn’t miss a deadline.

I’m definitely still like that; I don’t think I can totally wash away that kind of work ethic. But I’ve gotten a lot better about only working nine to five, or at least about taking more breaks, as needed. I think now it’s also more that I prefer to have my grad school work done ahead of time so I just don’t need to worry about it. I’m getting better at work-life balance, and if I only have a Thursday evening free to dig in and finish a discussion response before the following Tuesday, then, sure, that’s when it’s getting done. I know I won’t be able to focus or enjoy myself if I have deadlines and obligations hanging over me.

I also finally realized that chaining myself to my laptop for six hours and getting absolutely nothing done is not the smart choice. If I’m mentally exhausted, maybe I need to take a half-hour nap, or allow myself a few hours to read a book or watch a movie instead. I’m not going to be useful to myself or others if I’m totally burned out and run down. I’m accomplishing nothing by punishing myself with hours of half-assed “work.” I’m just upsetting myself, even hurting myself. 

Balancing full-time work and grad school over the last two months, I’ve finally realized that I can get everything done, even if it does have to happen the day before or the day of. It’s just about working on essays and responses and midterm projects when it feels right, not when I have to force myself to get shit done. I’m being better about listening to my brain and body and balancing what I need with the time I have. Even if it feels like something is being done “at the last minute,” it’s still getting done. That’s all that matters.

I’ve spent a lot of time pushing myself so hard, because I was afraid that other people would think I’d failed. Failure fucking terrifies me, even still. And failure has looked like a lot of different things to me: a B in a class instead of an A; having to skim the end of the book instead of making sure I had time to read every word; constructive criticism at my annual review that translated in my mind to my manager telling me I’d fucked up. 

So I’ve been working to redefine success and failure, and to align my goals and priorities accordingly. I love editing, I like to think I’m good at it, and I hope to continue working in publishing as long as I need a full-time job. (Still holding out for the seven-figure book deal one day—ha.) But it isn’t so much about becoming a senior editor or an editorial director or a publisher anymore. I feel lucky to be able to support myself doing what I’m good at and what I love to do. Now that I can do that, I want to refocus the rest of my energy on things that make me genuinely happy—reading, writing, napping with my cat, trying news bars with friends—and set aside the grinding I was doing before to prove myself. 

I have nothing to prove. I just want to make sure I’m doing what I need to do without hurting myself anymore.

Closing thoughts:

None. Head empty.

Total books read from the Moratorium Library: 38

(Total books added to the Library: 56)

I was tired of reading for grad school and wanted nonsense I could devour on a plane. Enter: The It Girl. And I loved it.

(And maybe I just picked up three new books from my local indie, WHAT OF IT.)