Stop Writing

So I think I'm going to have to give the novel a break for awhile. You may think, as normal people would, that my previous hiatuses of weeks at a time constituted "breaks," but that would make too much sense. This is a break of the "I am not currently writing a novel" variety.

There are many factors at work here.

1. I'm just damn sick and tired of it. I dread having to work on it and when I'm done I forget about it with gratitude. It's a chore.
   
2. It's taking up too much of my time. If I didn't have to work for a living, I would love to write a novel, but I already have two jobs and I've never been able to get by on less than eight hours of sleep. If I want, and I thiiiiiiink I do, to freelance full time and give up my day job for good, I'm going to have to spend hours every day shilling for new work. The sustained psychic space necessary for me to write fiction has no part in such a lifestyle, at least until I do in fact give up the day job.
   
3. It's a source of anxiety. Whenever I'm not working on it, I feel like I should be, and since I don't want to and don't have time, it makes me feel like a failure. I had a brief acute depression about two weeks ago, followed by my first-ever migraine, that scared me enough to really pay attention to sources of anxiety. The world is full of things I have to do that I don't want to and don't have time, and I can't impose more on myself and not go nuts.

I hope this isn't the end of The Amateurs; I do think it's a good idea and I do think I'm good at it. If I pick it up again in six months and finish it six months after that, it's better than writing it for a year and a half in my life's blood and then dying young. Quitting is depressing, but not as depressing as keeping on with it would be.

I'll try to keep posting here though -- I've got to tell someone about my knitting.

Final Word Count: 19,593