A friend of mine pointed out the fact that I am not typing words in IMs I send. At times I will send an IM where there is a sentence and somehow I won’t type a word right in the middle of it all. Then I looked back and I have caught myself doing this with status updates on Facebook and once or twice in text messages.
The more I think back on it I can remember little incidents here and there where I was forced to go back and correct something. Even as I type this I’m taking my time and going at it very slowly.
Googling this problem shows that it can be caused by stress. It feels like that’s been the theme in my life these days. There are other instances where I have been under stress, but normally I buckle and just drop everything; this time I’ve been holding everything up right as best I can and trying to juggle different things all at one time.
I need to just take the time away from different things, maybe this week I can do that. I need to just stay here on my days off. Actually stay here and don’t leave; not do the thing where I talk about it and then I’m out and about by the second day. There’s no proof that going out is causing the problem, but I don’t think staying in could hurt matters anymore.
There is some good news to report: I’ve been making an effort to actually get some work done on crafting better characters. I used to be so keen on anything and everything I could read about character craft and working on the people that inhabit the stories I write. I’ve actually found someone who offered to help me with the writing of one of my main characters by giving me insight into her former profession. I’ve never interviewed for something like this before, so we’ll see how it goes.
As for the issue of stress I am going to take control back. That doesn’t mean tomorrow. That means right now.
Pulp & Fiction 