Something in the Air

Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Lately, there’s been something in the air. At first, as a series of blustery days churned up the lakes, riled the trees, and brought in cooler air, I assumed that strange buzz in the atmosphere was simply autumn’s arrival. But the fact that temperature inside my work place today reached 91.1 degrees today pretty much debunked that theory.

And there’s still something in the air. A sense of energy. And even more than a sense of energy, some sort of urgency. Something that prompts me to keep going even when my mind tells me the day is done. Something that has me reaching for the “get some zzzs” herbal tea on an 85 degree evening.

Maybe it’s the result of the solar storms last week that painted the night sky in lovely shades of northern lights.
 

Or maybe it has to do with planet alignment. Whatever it is, the last week I find my days starting strong, only to spend most of the work day cranky yet after heading home and making supper, I am struck by a sudden urge to “go” just when it really should be time to turn out the lights. Andy calls it the “summer doldrums.” It doesn’t seem like doldrums to me exactly (at least not early in the morning or late at night) but it definitely feels unsettled.

Part of the unsettledness is perfectly logical. The first half of the month is always more frantic than the second half as I pulled together the month’s allotment of freelance articles. Once we hit the 15th of the month, things slow down, or at least, the manner in which things unfold is based slightly more on my whims.

Tori over at Rabid Ink wrote an interesting post on working to relax and it strikes me that what she writes about might be part of what’s going on around here as of late. This summer has been a juggling act of a wide variety of projects and it’s easy to view any sort of free time as procrastination. Instead of taking a load off at the end of the day, I find it more comforting to sit at the computer and attempt to tap out a few sentences, paragraphs. Keep that up for too long and there’s bound to be a strange sense of energy in the air that’s morphed out of my control.

So I’m giving into the summer doldrums, the solar storms, the planets, visit from muse, whatever this disturbance is. I will work on freelance assignments by morning and type out commentaries in the evening hours while simultaneously blogging, scouring Writer’s Digest and Fund for Writers for ways to hone my writing craft and improve my platform, and crafting editorial calendars. It seems silly to sit passively in befuddlement when something beyond me seems to be prompting: go, go, go. Someday soon, I know I'll wake up and find whatever it was has disappeared and it'll be same ol', same ol'. But until then, I might as well get something done.

Have the summer “doldrums” or some other strange force hit where you’re at? What do you do to manage it?

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