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I’ve been making myself chuckle this afternoon as my procrastination levels increase.  In fact, I’ve found a whole writers self-help website devoted to aiding folks like me to get down to the nitty-gritty of actually churning something out.

The last couple of nights I’ve hardly slept at all.  Monday night I was up until around 3am before finally dozing off, sleeping through till 11am save for an hour’s break in the middle around 6am to do much IVs.  Last night was worse – I didn’t manage to sleep at all until after my morning dose.

Oddly, it doesn’t appear to be your regular, run-of-the-mill, thinking-horrible-thoughts kind of insomnia.  Rather, it’s just that as I improve health-wise my brain is staying resolutely five strides ahead of my body.  So while I can’t do much physically during the day, my brain is aching to be put to use and if it’s not (as it hasn’t been) then it settles itself into manic thinking patterns when I hit the sack and keeps me wide awake, no matter how much my eyelids beg to differ.

So today I have been resolutely trying my best to a) stay awake all day and not take my usual afternoon nap and b) do things with my day that will make my mind feel like it’s had if not a real work out, at least a little bit of a gentle jog.

It struck me when I was  writing out my Christmas cards this afternoon that getting myself writing would be the most obvious method of productive mind-occupation, so I set that part of my brain that never stops whirring creatively to spin on ahead whilst I wrote, corrected and re-wrote the cards that kept being incorrectly filled in due to my non-multi-tasking man-brain.

Perhaps what I needed by way of a spur, I figured, was to tackle a branch of writing I’ve not tackled before – something different and fresh and intriguing to me.  I’ve written plays and I’ve written screenplays – I’ve even finished some of them, too.  So why not try something more narrative – a short story or similar?

In fact, it was the Stephen King interview I watched yesterday evening that provided my spark of inspiration – if I wanted to stir my creative brain and really test my mettle, why not try what writers used to do when they needed to churn something out (albeit usually for the cash than the creative momentum) and knock out a classic piece of pulp fiction?

Pulp fiction is that stuff that used to be known as Dime-Store Novels in the US and is more commonly known these days as Airport Fiction – that kind of crime-based, semi-plotted, under-characterised pap that you whistle through when you’re lying on the beach in the summer months trying not to remember that it’s only four more days till you’re back at work.

What better, I thought, than to pin myself down to knocking something out which needn’t have any literary merit at all, but merely serve as an exercise to show that a) I can still write and b) I can make myself focus on one thing for at least the space of time it takes me to write a chapter or two.

Of course, we all know that my mind doesn’t work like that.  Instead, I set off researching into pulp fiction and it’s current place in the literary world: is it still written, published, sold around the world?  Could I, conceivably, sell my mini-opus for publication when I’m done with it?

And research it I did.  I even answered most of my questions.  Which was annoying because it meant I had to come up with more questions so I didn’t have to actually start writing.

Surfing through the myriad writers’ websites dotted around the ‘net, I came across various tips for getting into good writing habits and avoiding said procrastination.  Eventually, I discovered an entire website devoted to a 30-day programme to help writers get organised and write.

That’s right: a 30-DAY PROGRAMME.  That’s an entire month’s worth of tips and exercises designed so that, at the end of the allotted period, you’re set to go write your masterpiece.  30 (Thirty) Days.  To get organised.  To AVOID procrastination.  It’s so funny, I can’t even do it justice with a smart-arsed quip.

Needless to say, I shall be sticking point-by-point the programme and ensuring that I don’t achieve ANYTHING by way of productivity before the New Year.  After all, if I don’t pay attention to the site I found, all my hard research work from today will have been for nothing, won’t it?

I’m clearly starting to reach sensible fitness levels as for the first time over the weekend, my mind has started to whir with possibilities of things I could be doing, or would like to do in the New Year.

Sadly, most of them are all things that will be beyond my reach before my Tx, but I suppose there’s no problem having some kind of roughly sketched plan for the future, however far away it may be.

At times like these, I find the difficult thing is to focus my mind on to one thing in particular and get something done.

Right now, for example, would be a perfect time to knuckle down and get some really good writing done.  Perhaps one of the new play ideas which have been circling my head – written up into draft form, or even just solidified in story terms.  Or perhaps taking an opportunity to look back over one of my few first-draft projects and hone them slightly.

Inevitably, though, I find myself enjoying my imagined new-life projects far too much and taking myself off into my fantasy new world while achieving nothing and taking no steps forward in the real world.

It seems silly, really, to become too swept up in the details and nitty gritty of the grand schemes I have laid out post-Tx when right now, planning whether or not I’m well enough to make a trip to Borders to finish the last of my Christmas shopping or treat myself to some new reading material.

What I need is some focus, and that’s what I’m heroically lacking in.  I say “heroically” as I’m blaming it on my brain as a way of coping with ignoring all the negative stuff that’s inevitably swirling around at celebration times and the turn of a New Year.

Yes, it helps to bluff oneself with the concept that you’re looking after yourself in the long run, and right now while you’re recovering physically, any kind of mental exertion is good, whether its practical or dream-based.  At least that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

There’s also the question of the “holiday season” as some loathsome people are wont to call it, which is arriving like a speeding train and is just as likely to derail any well-laid plans anyway, so it’s yet another excuse for butt-sitting and job avoidance.

Indeed, it seems fairly clear sitting here bashing away at the computer during the half-time break of the Sheffield Utd vs. Aston Villa game on the TV that the blog is just now as much a procrastination tool as anything else.

Or maybe – just maybe – forcing myself to sit and write my little progress notes of an evening is going to finally instill a little bit of discipline into my daily routine and lead me down the path of finally focused achievement.

Any takers?

So, in the grand scheme of things, this week has been a Good Week. 

Following last week’s major dip in form, interrupted only by a day of media insanity which appeared to coincide happily with an inexplicably good chest day, I finally appear to be getting a grip on a) the physical recovery process, with more energy, more internal resources and less time necessarily dedicated to sleep and b) the mental side of the game, which has seen me first acknowledge then work to accept my newly imposed limits.

In fact, my biggest challenge at this moment in time seems to be how to write a blog when covered in constantly interfering kitten.  Pepe, one of Mum and Dad’s two new additions (alongside sister Tio), isn’t happy about my paying more attention to the funny glowing box with movey-cursor thing and there’s something distinctly antagonistic in my fingers on the keys, it would appear.

It’s hard to type with a kitten biting your thumb.

As I improve I am working hard not to get too carried away with recovery and am relying rather heavily on K and my ‘rents to keep me grounded for the time being.

For the first time today I ventured out of the house under my own steam and wanted to do more but was talked down by K.  Dad has a Christmas party at work tonight and needed a lift there, but Mum had been to a Christmas party at work and was one over the limit, so I obligingly offered to run him into Town, from where I was planning to go to the flat and pick up some bits and bobs.

But, considering I’ve now gone two days without an afternoon kip (through lack of tiredness, not stubborn-streak staying awake), it fell to Lady K to suggest that perhaps racing round to the flat, up the stairs and back no doubt laden with odds and sods wasn’t the best way of testing how sustainable my energy levels actually are.

That said, it didn’t stop her urging me to boldly step back into Real Life by stopping at the chippy on my way home…

The point is, though, that as much as I feel like I’m striding forward at the moment and as positive and happy as that makes me feel, it’s important not to lose sight of what a tight-rope I’m walking just at the minute and to do what I can to minimise the risk of  a relapse.

Which means that while it’s important to know my boundaries, it’s equally important to identify them through gentle probing rather than smashing through them at a sprint.

The challenge now is how to ignore my natural instinct to plough ahead full-steam and instead to slowly reintegrate myself to life, the universe and everything.  And those of you who know me will be only too aware just how big a challenge that is.