This Is A Mare’s Nest

This is a mare’s nest, and can be a place of chaos.

It seems I almost forgot the true nature of the assignment I have given myself here. I want to use this place to put down more than just the finished, completed blog posts I’ve shown so far. Not everything in my writer’s life is as neatly organised as it may seem to be. I feel I have neglected to give you insight in the more troublesome periods. If I want to give an honest account of my writing-year here, and I do, I shouldn’t leave out the darker periods. It has in fact happened to me again; the last few weeks consisted of chaos building up to a breaking-point. I have been too busy for too long and have ended up feeling utterly drained.

Work, reading, writing, my family, myself: at times I allow it all to grow wildly out of control. When in fact everything is going very well: the work at the publishing house will always be busy, but I love it nonetheless. And with prospects of personal growth in new directions, I’m very excited about the future. Our books are doing very well, the first few months have been good and new manuscripts from our A-list authors have arrived, and I’m thrilled and honoured to be able to read them in this early stage. The reading of books for my own personal pleasure, is also very inspiring. I think I’ve also made some other sound choices: I cut back on random activities. I kicked out the magazines, as they were becoming too much of a guilt-trip. I was unable to read them as thoroughly as before, and I feel much happier without having to read them.

As far as my writing is concerned: my Luxembourg project is really beginning to take shape, and I’m starting to wake up at night with new ideas for my story. I have people that help and inspire me, and as a whole I cut back drastically on other activities. And yet I still have times when dividing my energy between the important stuff: home, work, writing, running, seems to completely get out of control.

This is partly due to what happened to me some ten years ago: in 2000 a rare blood-disease with a poetic name, thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (ttp), almost killed me, but in the end it didn’t. It was a grim time, quite a few people around me died in that hospital, and I had to undergo a long sequence of rather painful treatments. There is a lot to tell about this, but that is for another time. I mostly look back upon this strange period and the long way back to recovery as life-altering, and a starting point for growth.

All but for my energy-level; since then I get tired more easily, I find I need more sleep and need for my body to stay strong. This is why I started to run: as long as you can run, you are a healthy person. I was already giving everything I did my best, but after ttp, when the realisation that life is delicate and all can end just like that sank in; this has become an urgent responsibility.

And then there’s the experience of having to fight for survival. I know what it feels like to stretch your boundaries, to endure pain, to having to adjust to a constantly changing reality and body. This has helped me to develop a state of concentration –which is great for writing and has made running long distances a lot easier for me – but it can get pretty tiring sometimes. It’s the combination of intense concentration running loose and the lack of boundaries that leads to my exhaustion. At times like that I’m like an overstretched elastic band: in the past I used to be able to jump back to my familiar size, but no more.

So now you know why sometimes I have to withdraw, sleep a lot, be silent and not work so hard. And find my balance again, I always do. In the end everyone has a story to tell, things that got in the way, changed their lives, and held them back. This is Mare’s nest, and I can tell it here.