Have you ever had a week that just sort of feels like a bust? I know I’m my own harshest critic, but I definitely feel like I’ve had one of those weeks. It really wasn’t all that bad, though, which is why I do these Monday reset posts. It forces me to look at empirical evidence that proves that my gut feeling is actually wrong sometimes. I might feel like I’ve had a shit week for a multitude of reasons, but things still happened, things still got done. Maybe not a lot of things, but it just shows that the week wasn’t a complete bust, at least.

Let’s see what I mean.

Reading: I didn’t get around to finishing a book this week, which is seemingly par for the course these days and I’m super behind on my goal, but it’s not like I’m not making headway. I’ll get there, and, really, I’m reading, and that’s the important part. What’s the worst that could happen just because I didn’t hit a reading goal besides a stab at my pride? I’m just excited to be discovering as many bright new voices as I am. This week, I picked up Holly Black’s The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, which had me intrigued by the title and drew me in pretty well with the first chapter. It’s not my favorite style in the world, but I’m enjoying it all the same.

A few new stories came in for the next volume of the World Unknown Review, which has got a pretty good showing for not doing much advertising yet. We’re still a far shot away from the amount of submissions we got last year, though, so please send some stories my way! You can find out more on submissions page, and then come help make Volume IV the best volume yet!

Writing: And I think this is the crux of my misguided frustrations right here. The writing world has been absolutely silent. No new acceptances. No new rejections. No new reviews or really much of anything else. It’s so frustrating that these weeks can happen, even when you have more than 30 stories sent out. I’m running out of material to send out; I can’t work fast enough to produce more content, it seems, though I do have two stories I’ve been trying to get typed up and edited. I’m getting better about making time for them, but this week, I was just so…distracted. Not a good excuse, I know, but there’s been a lot going on for me.

‘Rithmatic: Which segues nicely into this section. I feel like my writing has been suffering a little because I’m so distracted with real world stuff. My interview for my promotion is coming up on Thursday, and even though everyone’s saying I’m a shoe-in, I hate taking anything for granted. I’m only up against one other candidate, but I’m low-key, under-the-surface nervous as shit. If I don’t get this position, it’s going to be absolute hell on my self-esteem, because that would just show how badly I fucked up the interview.

And it’s hot and humid again, which brings out the pests in our apartment and we’ve got mice again. Trying to keep that under control is stressing my boyfriend out, which then stresses me out, so we’re both feeling the tension. And we know that the last time we called our landlord about this, they acted all sanctimonious, like there couldn’t possibly be anything wrong with the building, it’s clearly a tenant problem, and I’m all, bitch, we live on the third floor. If we have mice and cockroaches (thankfully none of the latter right now because we took measures against it last year) and fruit flies, you can bet that the apartments below us have problems, too, they’re just not fucking saying anything, because when someone says anything, you brush it the fuck off. There’s also been some other issues with the management of this place that has lead us to being certain we want to move out when our lease ends in December. We’re both making more, so we can afford something that isn’t the bottom of our budget anymore, hopefully a nicer place with better management, because this place is pretty shitty. But, budget-wise, we can’t even really start looking until October, which means one more month of this place, when all we want is to get out now. Blech.

SO we’ve just got this discordant feeling right now, out of place, waiting, hands tied for the moment but itching to do something. It’s frustrating and it puts me on edge and it makes it hard for me to focus on my writing. I did, however, get a chance to go down to the Art Institute for a little art day, and that helped, and I got a much-needed 10 mile hike in, too.

Sometimes, you just have to set all the work stuff aside for a little bit and focus on a little self-care. And then you have to convince yourself that it’s okay (and that, for me, is the hard part).