I don’t know what to put on these wretched pages. It has been eighteen days since I started this endeavour, and I have written only ten stories. I have plenty of conceptual ideas, but when it comes to actually writing them on paper it seems the words escape me, time and time again. I have tried to change my surroundings, and I have tried writing at different times of the day.
Occasionally, I find a groove that seems to work well, and a story drops from my fingers, to my keyboard. Unfortunately, what works today may not work at all tomorrow. It is almost like each story has its own setting in which it must be written. My work desk in my apartment seems all emptied out, like every story that exists in that setting has been written. I am now sitting in a scout house not far from where I live, hoping to get more words on the pages.
I am stressed. Not just from this book project, but from work, working from home, having dozens of projects I never seem to finish and have just as many chores, I can’t find the energy to do. I thought I was over the whole stress period. I thought I found a way to overcome it. And then it came back. A lump in the throat. The inability to fall asleep at night the lack of energy through the day. The constant nagging sensation, that no matter what I do, and how many things I finish, there will always be twice as many things that I still have to do. Never getting to the bottom of the pile and being able to just relax. And it only feeds the feeling, when I try to get something done, and nothing happens. I have important task at work, that I know how to do. But when I sit down to do them, I find myself staring at a screen for hours, with what feels like no progress to the task at hand, at all. This cycle of inactivity is slowly, but surely killing me. The feeling that I am stressed because I never get anything done and at the same time being unable to get anything done, because I am stressed.
You might think that working from home might at least offer some help on the matter. Saving time on transport and having more freedom to do whatever I want whenever I want. But in my experience, it has the opposite effect. When working from home it is much easier to postpone every task until later. Having the freedom to do whatever, whenever also means that I don’t have to do any specific task, right now. Everything I plan to do can technically wait till after lunch. Or till after one more short video on YouTube. Or till tomorrow if I don’t get it done today. Or till next week because I should relax over the weekend. Only I can’t relax. Every waken hour I am tense from the knowledge that I am highly inefficient at my work, hopelessly behind on chores, only less than half done with a series of projects and always struggling to do anything about any of this.
Right now, I’m working on this very ambitious book project. Thirty short stories in as many days. When I started it, I was in a good place, but over the last few days the stress has started to get to me. I have considered scrapping the project. Throwing in the towel, and calling it quits. Then I would at least have one less thing to worry about. One less thing that I am behind on. But if I do that, I will forever look back at this half-finished project and ask myself: Why didn’t I finish that one? I have everything I need to finish it, since all I need is a way to write these stories. Even though the stressing factor of having to write stories every day would be gone, another stress would surely ensue. The stress of failure and disappointment. A sense of freedom, of course, from not having this very tight schedule. But a sense of freedom, largely overshadowed by the feeling of inadequacy. The feeling of never being able to finish anything. The crippling feeling that I will never get out of this spiral of stress and self-loathing.
That is why I have set my mind on completing this project, no matter how ambitious and undoable it may seem at times. It has to be finished, and on time. No cutting corners, no pushing deadlines and no giving up because it is hard. It has to be done, because it has to be my proof to myself, that I can actually accomplish somethings, if I dedicate myself enough to it. This is my prophecy; a prophecy I will live to fulfill or die trying: When the thirtieth story is finished, on the thirtieth day of the project, I will finally be able to relax. I will enjoy that evening and I will sleep well that night. Now I know very well that the chance of finishing this project magically curing my stress, anxiety and wealth of self-inflicted mental issues is about as great as the chance of world peace by the end of this month. But the hope that it might help and the belief that it can, at the very least, give me one thing to be proud of, is what keeps me going. And I have to keep going!