Storytime with Rachel F Hundred

As many times as it takes.

My main focus for writing in August has been my Harry Potter story ‘Another Dimension’ and it is with regret that I admit defeat on getting it published by the end of August.

The biggest obstacle has been my full time contract which has consumed my life for the past two weeks in a way which I did not anticipate. I knew it was going to be busy – bid work always is – but I thought my role in it would decrease for the final two weeks. Unfortunately that was not the case. I was pretty much full-time plus, leaving me with very little energy to do anything outside of that particular work.

Unsurprisingly, my health suffered from the five weeks of intensive overwork. I was already exhausted and suffering from what turned out to be not just a flare-up of my fibromyalgia but a fully sprained right wrist – my dominant hand. I ended up with a migraine last weekend which felled me completely.

Two weeks of overworking with a bad wrist for one contract and my health going pear-shaped have meant very little has happened outside of those things.

I’ve managed barely to keep the wheels turning on my own business. Barely. Even my social media posting took a hit. I haven’t posted anything on Linkedin or Substack for two weeks, missed a couple of days on Bluesky (although I managed to do ‘catch-up’ posts), and generally have been unable to move forward on the major projects. I managed to do coaching, but not the write-ups. I’ve had to reschedule mentoring sessions twice.

Needless to say writing anything has not happened.

It feels like I’ve done nothing for the past few months but write ‘I’m going to reset’ or ‘I’m replanning’ or ‘I’m learning to juggle all over again’ and yet these things are true and I reset with good intention each time. It just feels like as soon as I get a handle on one set of circumstances, the floor beneath me shifts, the walls around me change, and I have to readapt.

I feel like I’ve taken a million steps forward and a million steps backwards all at the same time.

Yet, here we are again.

The fact is that it would be easy to surrender to the idea that juggling is too difficult and to give up; to subside back into the comfort of a busy nine-to-five job which is satisfying in that I am helping a charity make the changes they need to really make a social difference, even if it is not what I really want to do.

What I really want to do is the writing.

I need to keep focused on that. So even if resetting again feels like deja vu, if that’s what I need to do to remain focused on writing, that is what I am going to do.

I woke up yesterday with the knowledge that the bid is submitted. It is a good piece of work. Hopefully this contract should return to ‘normal’ this week, even if there are a couple of workshops planned which means a couple of long days of travelling.

It’s still a good opportunity to reset.

Yesterday I set about getting the house in order. A warrior clean from top to bottom, pacing myself and resting to take the pressure off my wrist which is still recovering. Today, I gave myself a pampering session to get myself to rights. I have caught up on some very outstanding work and done some needed personal errands.

This log is my writing task for today.

The next four days are going to be focus on work because I am behind on my own business activity and I have deadlines approaching in September which means I need to get things ready. I want to do some replanning as well around the business as one of my coaching contracts will finish in September.

But I am going to challenge myself to write at least one hundred words of fiction or fanfiction every day. It does not need to be the same story. It does not need to be the story I was planning to focus on. It just needs to be something. This should get me back into the habit of writing.

I then have an extended bank holiday lined up where I will replan the writing and focus in on my Harry Potter story first. There is not enough time for it get done before the end of August but that does not mean I can’t push through and try and get it published in September.

The truth is that it doesn’t matter how many times I have to reset. I’ll keep doing it until I have that novel published, until writing can be my career and I never have to do another bid ever again.

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