Anxiety And Edits – The Climb #358

Sunday 14^th January 2018

I feel terrible. I was unable to sleep last night due to my racing mind and then when I did, I ended up waking up a few hours later.
I’m at that stage where I just need to rest and keep my mind occupied. The moment I’m left to my thoughts, I find myself my head start to speed up to breakneck speeds.
So this morning I worked on the novel, going through the notes I’d made and making a few corrections. At this stage, all I’m really worried about are character and story arcs. What I want to know is whether the book works. Fine-tuning it can come later.
I got hung up on a scene with the Council of Seven. I’m not sure I want a tertiary character on the council just yet (as that may be a major plot point of a future book), but I couldn’t make it work any other way so I left it in.
Likewise, I’ve tried to seed names of faceless goons across the novel so that they don’t feel like a made up character on the spot when they appear. I’m not sure how well I’ve done. I seem to remember it being a bigger problem before I did this draft, and I hope the corrections I made result in addressing the issues.
However, it may require some sections being rewritten (I am just not mentally capable of making that judgement right now.)
By lunchtime it felt less like I’d drunk 20 Red Bulls and somehow I seemed to have all the changes made. It sometimes amazes me how easy it can be to make some major changes. Just a line here or there and major plot holes can be fixed.
I’m always nervous though. I don’t trust myself not to take short cuts and it normally results in a lot more work than this. I suspect, given my current mental state, I’ve been willing to let it go imperfect.
Still, it’s done and I thought that might easy my anxiety. However, all it did was leave me with nothing to do and start me overthinking things.
So I walked into town to get some more model glue, and came back to spend the afternoon and evening gluing together a load more Shadows of Brimstone models. Despite putting several hours into it, I still don’t feel like I’ve got any closer to getting them all done.
And then, despite it being very late I went to the gym. My idea was that if I could knacker myself out then, combined with my lack of sleep, it might mean I actually get some sleep tonight.
We’ll have to see. The combination of anxiety and lack of sleep is impacting my judgement right now and whilst I am able to gather my thoughts into some form of sensible focus, it’s taking effort to do so.
Usually I only spot anxiety attacks as the symptoms lessen and I’m afforded some clarity. However, I can be quite impulsive and I don’t like being in a position where I can’t trust my gut instinct. I feel blind. I hope it proves to be the case that this is now the tail end, and I’ll be back to normal in a couple of days. Anxiety is so mentally exhausting.
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