Routines

Well, another week has passed by without climbing. I even dreamt about it last night. Dreaming of climbing was fantastic! I have ideas now that I did not have before, and they have come from my dreams about climbing. That, I find interesting. Next week is now my goal to get back into my routine.

Routine. That is my problem right now. This COVID-19 pandemic has utterly disrupted any sense of routine that I had left in my life. My doctor made it part of my homework to make a schedule for my days and try to stick to it. Everything–literally everything–is disrupted. My sleep, my climbing, my eating, my exercise, my medication schedule . . . I cannot find anything in my life that has not been disrupted by this. Even my blogging has been disrupted by it! That is what leads me to psychological trouble–disruption of routines. I have trouble with change. I cannot see my friends. I cannot go to the places that I usually go to do the things that I have found help my PTSD remain in check. I have attempted to engage in some new things to take the place of what I have lost, but some of it does not work very well, and nothing works as well as climbing does! I had a great year of climbing in 2017. Since then, things have changed a lot in ways I could not have predicted and some obstacles to climbing daily have come into play in my life. I must overcome these to retain my sanity, however it is far from easy. There are no simple fixes.

What progress have I made in the last few days? I have made progress with my writing. I have completed a first revision of “A Demon’s Redemption” and will complete subsequent revisions until I feel it is fit for others to read. My first draft, I have realized, was terrible, but at least I had a first draft to work from. That means that I finished something. I have to admit that it was terrible. Finishing a first draft is the most difficult part of a story for me, though. I am proud of myself for finishing a horrible first draft! I just finished a horrible first draft of another short story the day before yesterday that I have yet to type up. I may post a series of revisions on one or the other to show how I revise my short stories. It is a process, let me tell you! It is meant to be a process, though, and not necessarily a quick one. You have to write the story–just write, don’t edit–and then leave it to marinate in its own juices for a while. Work on something else for a while, then go back to it and read it as if you have never seen it before. That is what works for me, at least. Right or wrong, it is some kind of method to the madness!