Pressure Relief

Due to various stressers I have been struggling with writing for the last six months or so, and (not for the first time) considered giving it up. My partner is almost ready to retire, and financially speaking neither of us really need to work any more. The state of the world has been hard for me to deal with, and my health issues and depressing empty-nest home life haven't helped. I like to work, and there will never come a time when I give up writing entirely, but the temptation to stop writing for a living has been strong. Here's what I discovered while wrestling with all that:

Writing stories for myself helps. I've always written stories I've never shared with anyone, but I got away from that when I went freelance. Lately I've written about a dozen short stories; I'm currently working on a for-fun novel that I'm writing a page or two a day.

I can't write well or happily without dogs in my life. This kind of surprised me, but I now realize that ever since we lost Cole and Skye I've been creatively lost, too. Now that we have the puppies I can see the difference it makes with my mood and inspiration and productivity.

I've let too many toxic family members get between me and the page. I'm done with them, so that's over now, but it was a long, drawn-out painful process of letting go.

I've become more forgiving of myself. This ties in with the self-love quest I've been on for a while now; I no longer beat myself up so much for being imperfect and unable to do everything that is expected of me. I'm still working on this, but I'm making good progress.

Focusing more on being happy than hurt is the primary pressure relief. Wallowing in pain feeds depression; reaching for light doesn't.