Tough couple of days

Last year I used to joke the day after my Tuesday night basketball games that the games were the biggest disruption to my writing schedule. But I'm playing again, and for real, it's no joke. I'm in a lot of pain the day after the games and besides that just mightily fatigued. I moved like a zombie all day yesterday and got nothing done, and today hasn't been a lot better. I'm going to have to find a way to deal with that--dramatically increase my coffee consumption or something, when I'm trying hard to decrease it otherwise.

I'm also going to have to do something about how OCD I'm getting about following the news. I'm having a lot of trouble resisting the endless media offerings online about whatever has my interest. (These days it's the election. Next month I expect it will be the baseball postseason.) I'm being very undisciplined.

Part of that is me, but I also know part if it is a response to the fear I have about the book right now. It rears up at different times--for instance when I have a lot of thinking to do to find my way through a really vague problem. It's necessary, but it means not making a lot of mileage, and the guilt and uncertainty makes me hesitate.

So yesterday, I didn't accomplish much except doing a little bit of that thinking--in the form of about 3 pages of freewriting about the specific problems in Chapter 7. And today I started to tackle Chapter 7, making a lot less progress than I should have for the amount of time I had, but some progress anyway.

So, unlikely that I'll finish the chapter tomorrow and therefore this week. But I'm determined to make good use of tomorrow. I see a path, and I'm going to walk it.